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BY L. ALLEN HARKER 


THE VAGARIES OF TOD AND PETER 
THE REALLY ROMANTIC AGE 
THE BRIDGE ACROSS 
MONTAGU WYCHERLY 
ALLEGRA 

CHILDREN OF THE DEAR COTSWOLDS 

JAN AND HER JOB 

THE FFOLLIOTS OF REDMARLEY 

MISS ESPERANCE AND MR. WYCHERLY 

MR. WYCHERLY’S WARDS 

MASTER AND MAID 

CONCERNING PAUL AND FIAMMETTA 
A ROMANCE OF THE NURSERY 


CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 




THE VAGARIES 
OF TOD AND PETER 





THE VAGARIES 
OF TOD AND PETER 


BY 

L. ALLEN BARKER 

w 

f'-* 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 

1923 


M ■a.'^55’ 

Vo- 


Copyright, 1923, bt 
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS' 

Printed in the United States of America 


Published September, 1923 


< 


< ‘ < 


©C1A752840 



SEP 10 ’23 ^ 




TO 

MARGARET GWENELIN WATSON 

WITH LOVE AND HIGH HOPES FOR 
HER FUTURE 






FOREWORD 


A small boy coming down to the drawing-room 
at half-past five for the sacred hour of play, found 
a visitor absorbing his mother^s attention. For 
five minutes or so he politely refrained from inter¬ 
rupting their conversation, and he wandered about 
the room, a little disconsolate perhaps, but in that 
state of being described by nurses as ^^not a bit of 
trouble.’’ When, however, the five minutes length¬ 
ened into ten, he felt that direct action of some sort 
was imperative. So he advanced upon the linger¬ 
ing guest, laid small, imperative hands upon her 
knee; and lifting an anxious face to hers, enquired 
in honeyed tones: ^^Is you going to stay very much 
longer?” 

That was in the forgotten, by some regretted, by 
many derided, nineties. 

The other day I was having tea with a charm¬ 
ing friend, wise mother of many sons, when the 
youngest, aged two, came for the sacred hour. It 
was pleasant in that drawing-room and I made no 
haste to go. Whereupon he came to me and, with 
a gracious, even a gallant, gesture, held out his hand 
to me with the utmost friendliness, conversing the 
while perpetually and emphatically in a manner 
difficult for the uninitiated to follow. Pleased and 
flattered, I took the kind little hand, which pulled 
me to my feet. He then firmly led me to the door 
and out to the top of the staircase, and was pre¬ 
paring to escort me downstairs and to the front 
door, when his mother ran after us and fetched us 
back. 


vii 


Vlll 


FOREWORD 


Whatever else is changing in the present; bewil¬ 
dering world; there is one section of the community 
that is essentially Conservative; not to say ^^Die 
Hard/^ 

Outside my window there is a long; straggling 
street of old cottages which have altered very little 
since the fourteenth century; and in those little old 
houses dwell many children who play in the street; 
games that were doubtless popular ^4n Thebes^s 
streets three thousand years ago/^ 

The adult attitude towards children has changed 
even during the last fifty yearS; and largely for the 
better. Yet the child’s attitude towards his play¬ 
mate; and even towards the omniscient grown-up; 
is fundamentally what it has been throughout the 
ages. 

The early nineteenth century is often quoted by 
deprecators of the twentieth as a time when the 
attitude of youth towards age was particularly 
praiseworthy in its modesty and reverence. Such 
people; who are perhaps a little prone to forget 
their own youthful viewpoint; tell us that in those 
golden days children accepted without question the 
opinions of those who were set in authority over 
them; and were almost invariably obedient, con¬ 
tented and unenterprising. Yet, researches in the 
literature published especially for children by that 
^Triend of youth,” John Newbery, at ^The corner 
of St. Paul’s Churchyard;” in his little ^^gilt books” 
—^most of them published between 1745 and 1802 
—^prove that badly-behaved children were by no 
means uncommon, and that over-indulgent parents 
were not unknown. In the Histories of More 
Children than One; or, Goodness Better than 


FOREWORD 


IX 


Beauty/^ Master John and Miss Maiy Strictum, 
who, as their names imply, are models of deport¬ 
ment, are unfavorably contrasted with Master 
Thomas and Miss Kitty Bloomer. 

Thomas insists upon his papa^s horse being 
brought into the parlour for him to ride round the 
room. His mamma tried ^To persuade him not to 
want it, but he would have his own way.’’ 

'^Thomas was much pleased to have it, but Kitty 
was afraid of it and did not like that it should stay. 
She therefore began to scream and beg it might go 
out. Tray take it out!’ said she. Ht shall go 
out; it shan’t stay.’ 

''Ht shan’t go out. It shall stay!’ said her 
brother. 

^They made such a noise that they frightened 
the horse, and he began to kick and prance,” and 
all manner of disasters followed. Not even the 
most weak-minded modern parent could go further 
than this in the way of indulgence. 

Even in so didactic a work as ‘‘The First Prin¬ 
ciples of Religion and the Existence of a Deity Ex- 
plained in a Series of Dialogues Adapted to the 
Capacity of the Infant Mindf^ you will find a child 
as human and engaging as any infant born since 
the Armistice. In this work the particular infant 
selected for enlightenment is one Maria, made after 
no formal pattern. Throughout the long and deadly 
dialogues her nimble mind outpaces mamma’s pon¬ 
derous aphorisms. As, when that lady discourses 
on the awful consequences of taking God’s name in 
vain, Maria demands demurely: ^Tut would it not 
be politer and prettier to say either Mr. or Mrs., 
and not plain God?” 


X 


FOREWORD 


Again, when her mother, as an example of the 
evils of slyness, relates how ^Hhe two Misses Quick 
had pincushions of the same make, but Miss Betty^s 
was larger than Miss Sally’s,’^ and Miss Sally by a 
subterfuge manages to exchange her own for her 
sister’s, Maria says thoughtfully: ^^Do you think 
then. Mamma, that it signifies to God which of the 
Miss Quicks had the larger pincushion?” 

Could the most recent Realist ask a more search¬ 
ing question? 

At Christmas time the papers seemed full of de¬ 
scriptions of blase children who insisted on going to 
expensive shops to choose their own presents, who 
scoffed at fairies or Santa Claus, and scouted the 
idea of any sort of childlike party. I do not move 
in plutocratic circles, so I cannot vouch for either 
the truth or falsehood of these dismal revelations. 
But I do know that the vast majority of gently- 
bred children born before and during the years that 
followed 1914 are easily pleased, and are grateful 
for very small mercies in the way of amusement, 
because nothing else is possible to the greater part 
of the upper middle class for financial reasons. 
And no one who, in recent years, has been to Peter 
Pan” and looked round the crowded theatre glori¬ 
ously garlanded with chubby, rosy faces, and heard 
the full-throated affirmative that greets the ques¬ 
tion ^^Do you believe in fairies?” can doubt that 
children are still pretty sound on subjects of that sort. 

This being so, is it incredibly bold or superla¬ 
tively simple, on my part, to have ventured to col¬ 
lect into a little sheaf some fugitive sketches of the 
kind of children I have known during the last 
twenty-five years? 


FORWORD 


XI 


Perhaps it is, and that being so, I can only quote 
the lines in which Mr. Kipling has once and for all 
time summed up the humble plea of the free-lance: 

When ^Omer smote ’is bloomin’ l3n*e, 

He’d ’eard men sing by land an’ sea; 

An’ what he thought ’e might require, 

’E went an’ took—the same as me! 

Cirencester 

1923 









CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Foreword .vii 

PART I—BOYS 

The Vagaries of Tod and Peter. 1 

^^Tony’^.56 

A Square Peg.64 

A Twentieth-century Misogynist.79 

PART II—CHILDREN OF LAST CENTURY 

A Small Event.105 

In Durance Vile.126 

The Surrender of Lady Grizell.134 

A Clean Pack.144 

An Iron Seat.152 

Leon.160 

The Old Religion.168 

Comrades.177 

Little Shoes.184 

Passing the Love of Women’’.189 

A Throw Back.197 

The Intervention of the Duke.207 

PART HI—CHILDREN OF THIS 

Jean, A Portrait.253 

The Doll’s-house Flags (1917).264 

Concerning Chris and Easter (1916) . . . 280 


















PART I 


BOYS 









THE VAGAEIES OF TOD AND PETEK 


I 

THE MURDER 

By the people who live in the same terrace they 
are known as “those dreadful twins.’’ By the 
more plain-spoken of the masters at the prepara¬ 
tory school which they attend they are distin¬ 
guished by an adjective whose meaning is the 
reverse of “heavenly”; and their schoolfellows 
are filled with respectful admiration for the boys, 
the most resourcefully'and superfluously naughty 
of their acquaintance, whose genius for making the 
most patient of masters lose his temper is unsur¬ 
passed. 

The only person who takes them and their ways 
with calm philosophy is their mother. She, with 
that sense of proportion and balanced wisdom so 
frequently vouchsafed to mothers of large fami¬ 
lies, laughs and loves them, and believes in their 
ultimate regeneration. There is some ground for 
the faith that is in her; for when a woman has 
seen six sons fare forth into the world to cut no 
such indifferent figure in it, she is not apt to des¬ 
pair of the two youngest, roister they never so. 

1 


2 


BOYS 


Moreover, she declares that most of their evil 
doings are ‘‘really Mr. Stevenson’s fault,” and 
there is truth in the charge, for from the moment 
that some thoughtless person, probably a god¬ 
father (I have known godfathers, living at a dis¬ 
tance, who would present trumpets, nay, even 
concertinas! to the sons of men whom they have 
called by the name of friend), gave Peter a copy 
of ‘ ‘ The Merry Men ’ ’ and Tod ‘ ‘ Treasure Island, ’ ’ 
they have tried to tit their surroundings to the 
characters they are forever enacting; with the 
result that the plain workaday world, that knows 
not the “Master Mage” of Samoa, is always 
puzzled and generally wroth. 

That genial “spirit of boyhood” had never so 
much as to beckon to them; he had but to hold out 
his friendly hands, and Tod and Peter, each clasp¬ 
ing one in both their own, were his, body and soul, 
forevermore. 

They are alike as the two Dromios, these twins; 
and the mistakes and complications arising from 
this likeness are a never-failing source of satisfac¬ 
tion to them. For instance, Peter will cheerfully 
undergo a caning intended for Tod that he may 
afterwards meekly demand of his chastener what 
he has done to deserve this discipline, gleefully 
watching the while the weary wonder on the 
master’s face grow to a disgusted certainty that he 
has, as usual, “punished the wrong one.” 

The fact that they are rather noticeably comely 
boys—they came of a family where on both sides 
of the house good looks are the invariable rule— 
only serves to increase the confusion. Both are 



VAGAEIES OF TOD AND PETEE 3 


tall and straight, fair-haired, blue-eyed, ruddy, 
and of a uniformly cheerful countenance. But 
kind Nature has bestowed on Tod an accomplish¬ 
ment she has denied to Peter, to his lasting grief. 

At certain seasons of the year Tod ‘‘moults’^ 
and can pull out quantities of his thick fair hair 
without the slightest inconvenience to himself. He 
generally chooses to perform this feat during the 
silent hours of ‘‘prep.’^ They have done their 
evening work at school ever since the night they 
were discovered grilling ‘^Home Influence’’ and 
‘‘A Mother’s Eecompense” over the study fire, 
when they ought to have been wrestling with 
‘ ‘ Excerpta Facilia. ’ ’ AVhen the master in charge 
has walked down to the end of the long school¬ 
room where Tod ‘‘keeps,” and has turned to go 
back again, Tod is suddenly seized by a perfect 
paroxysm of despair, clutches at his hair with 
frantic though absolute noiseless gesticulations, 
and casts whole handfuls of fluffy curls on the 
floor about him. 

Naturally his companions, including Peter, get 
lines for disturbing the placidity of “prep” with 
their unseemly giggles. And George, when he 
sweeps up the schoolroom next morning, may be 
heard to mutter: 

“Wherever aU this ’air do come from passes 
me!” 

Tod’s real name is Percy—he is called after a 
wealthy and aristocratic relative—but he refuses 
point-blank to answer to it, for he fancies that it 
savours of those “eeny peeny” children in “Home 
Influence,” a work that earned their undying ha- 


4 


BOYS 


tred when it was read aloud to them by a well- 
intentioned hut mistaken aunt while they were 
recovering from measles. 

On the occasion of its holocaust, before referred 
to, their mother, passing the study, and struck by 
the unwonted stillness reigning therein, opened the 
door softly and looked in. Both boys were stoop¬ 
ing over the fireplace and prodding a solid yet 
feathery mass that glowed and gloomed in the 
heart of the embers. 

There goes Herbert, ‘the almost-angel boy,’ 
and ‘haughty Caroline,’ and ‘playful Emmiline,’ ” 
whispered Tod, poking viciously. While Peter, 
quoting from “Thrawn Janet,” added in an awful 
voice: 

Witch, heldame, devil! I charge you, hy the 
power of God, begone—if yon he dead, to the 
grave—if you he damned, to helU’ 

I regret to say that their mother’s sense of hu¬ 
mor is stronger than her dislike of strong lan¬ 
guage, and that she stole away to laugh, leaving 
the conspirators unrebuked for the moment. But 
they did their “prep.” at school henceforth. 

Peter’s manner is singularly misleading in its 
frank sincerity, and he will on occasion answer a 
sudden question in a way which is, to say the least 
of it, bewildering to his interlocutor. 

For instance, one day in the football-field a new 
master asked him the name of a small boy some 
distance off who was “slacking” abominably. 

“Who’s that chap with the red hair by the goal 
posts?” he said to Peter, who had been somewhat 
officiously putting him right on several points. 


VAGAEIES OF TOD AND PETER 5 


“Dumpkins, sir,’’ that youth replied, demurely, 
and strolled off to a distant part of the playground. 

‘ ‘ Dnmpkins! ’ ’ bawled the master. ‘ ‘ Dnmpkins, 
why aren’t yon playing np?” 

But Dnmpkins heeded not the voice of authority 
and continued to loll and gaze heavenward in easy 
inactivity. 

‘ ‘ Dnmpkins! Dump—kins! ’ ’ again he bellowed. 

But Dnmpkins only took an apple out of his 
pocket and began to eat it. 

He is a hasty-tempered young man that master, 
and he strode toward the hapless Dnmpkins and 
shook him angrily, exclaiming: 

‘‘Why don’t you answer when I call, you cheeky 
little beggar?” 

“Please, sir, you never called me, sir,” expos¬ 
tulated the boy, wriggling in the master’s grip. 

“Why, I’ve been shouting ‘Dnmpkins’ all over 
the field for the last five minutes! ” 

‘ ‘ But, please sir, my name is Jones! ’ ’ 

• •••••• 

“Why did you tell me Jones’s name was Dump- 
kins, you, Peter?” the master indignantly de¬ 
manded of Tod some minutes later. 

“I couldn’t have done that, sir,” said Tod, 
gravely, “for there’s nobody called Dnmpkins in 
the school.” 

It was this young master who rechristened the 
twins when Peter next day insisted that “a point 
has position but no gratitude.” 

Strangely enough “The Merry Men” finds even 
greater favor with them than “Treasure Island,” 
and with the enigmatical decision of childhood 


6 


BOYS 


their favorite of all the stories is ‘‘MarkKeim/^ 
not ‘‘Will o’ the Mill,” beloved of critics. It is 
doubtful if they understand much of it, but never¬ 
theless they read it over and over again to each 
other aloud, or silently with their curly heads 
pressed together, till they knew it by heart. To 
be sure, “Thrawn Janet” has a dreadful fascina¬ 
tion for them, and they acted one of the principal 
scenes with somewhat direful results. 

Peter made Tod “tie him by the neck” to the 
bed with red worsted, while Tod, in his character 
of the minister, had to creep in, candle in hand, to 
discover the dread spectacle; and Peter’s repre¬ 
sentation of the fearsome Janet was so truthful 
and blood-curdling that Tod dropped the candle 
and fled downstairs howling at the top of his voice, 
and such was his haste that he fell and sprained 
his wrist. Meanwhile, the candle had set fire to 
the valance of the bed, and altogether there was 
a fine hullabaloo; there Avas also an end put to 
their dramatic efforts for a week or two. 

Nothing daunted, however, about a month later, 
on a Sunday evening when the servants Avere all at 
church, and their mother writing for dear life the 
long Aveekly letters that have to be written Avhen a 
Avoman has husband and four sons scattered about 
the globe. Tod and Peter sought the seclusion of 
the kitchen and determined to “act” “Mark- 
heim.” 

All went well and quietly for a long time; the 
firelit kitchen Avith loud ticking clock answered 
admirably as the scene of the murder, the dialogue 
between Markheim and the mysterious stranger 


VAGARIES OF TOD AND PETER 7 


went without a hitch, and Tod sallied forth into a 
‘^wonderful clear night of stars,’’ while Peter shnt 
the back door softly after him. Peter, in his char¬ 
acter of Markheim, was bent upon making the 
speech with which the story concludes, where the 
maidservant rings the doorbell and Markheim 
opens to her with the words: ‘‘You had better go 
for the police; I have killed your master! ’ ’ 

Poor Tod had to he the maidservant—he always 
had to follow where Peter led. He shivered as he 
ran up the area steps ; it was a cold night, he had 
not troubled to provide himself with a coat, and 
his heart was heavy, for, to tell the truth, he has 
far more imagination than Peter, and sometimes 
their plays are to him one long agony of appre¬ 
hension. 

He positively dreaded ringing that area hell, 
and the sinister announcement that would follow 
on the act. No longer was he Tod, but a trembling 
servant lass who was forced by fate to ring a bell 
which sounded a tocsin of dreadful import. 

He ran down to the end of the terrace and stood 
under a lamp that he might brace himself for the 
final effort. 

Meanwhile, Peter, swollen with importance at 
the thought of the mighty sensation he would make 
in a minute or two, stood squeezed against the 
hinge of the door waiting for the fateful ring. 

Then came a patter of light feet down the area 
steps and someone gave the bell a modest pull. 
Peter drew open the door with great suddenness 
upon himself, exclaiming in a deep and tragic 
voice, the result of long practice in solitary attics: 


8 


BOYS 


^‘You had better go for the police; I have hilled 
your master 

The visitor gave a piercing shriek and rushed 
up the steps again, calling breathlessly upon 
Heaven and the police. Peter, behind the door, 
wagged his head, exclaiming admiratively: 

‘‘How well that kid does act; I could almost 
declare I heard skirts rustling.’’ 

Peter waited awhile for his brother to return 
and be congratulated, but Tod didn’t appear, so 
he concluded that he had gone round to the front 
door and come in that way; besides, the servants 
were just due from church, and cook would be 
cross if she found him in her domain. He ran 
upstairs and waited for his twin in the drawing¬ 
room. His mother looked up from her letters and 
smiled at the little figure tip-toeing on the hearth¬ 
rug to admire himself in the glass. Then scratch, 
scratch went her pen again. 

Now, Ada, the housemaid, has a dear friend in 
service at the other end of the terrace, and she 
attends a church where the sermons are shorter 
than those at the one frequented by Peter’s house¬ 
hold. On this particular Sunday she got out of 
church quite early and thought she would see 
whether Ada happened to be in. Thus, while Tod 
with lagging feet crept slowly down the terrace 
from one end, she was already fleeing affrightedly 
to the other in search of the nearest policeman. 

She found him at the pillar-box, and fell into his 
stalwart arms, crying hysterically: 

‘ ‘ Oh, come quick! There’s bin murder done at 
Number 9. Someone’s bin an ’ killed the marster! ’ ’ 


VAGARIES OF TOD AND PETER 9 


P.C. Lee turned the light of his hnlPs-eye upon 
Ada’s friend and found her fair to look upon. All 
the same, although he still supported her trem¬ 
bling frame, he shook his head slowly, saying: 

‘‘ ’E ain’t there for to be murdered; the Colo¬ 
nel’s bin in Hinjia this las’ ten weeks; the missis 
tol’ me so ’erself, when she ast me to keep a special 
heye to them premises.” 

All the same, in spite of his incredulity, P.C. 
Lee was already on his way to Number 9, half 
leading, half carrying Ada’s friend with him. 

‘‘But I tell you,” persisted the girl, “when I 
ring that there bell, the door opened sudden-like 
as if someone was be’ind it, and a hawful voice 
says to me, ‘You’d better go for the perlice,’ it 
says, ‘I’ve killed your master,’ and I was that 
taken to, I did go for you, Mr. Lee, as fast as I 
could lay foot to the ground. It may be as one 
of the young gentlemen’s bin murdered, ’is pa 
bein’, so to speak, abroad. It give me such a 
turn-” 

And Ada’s friend was forced to stop in the 
middle of the road, overcome by the horrid recol¬ 
lection. 

“But didn’t you see no one?” asked P.C. Lee, 
in a judicial voice. 

“No, trust me, I didn’t wait to see nothing; I’d 
’eard enough without that. I’ll wait out ’ere,” she 
continued as they reached the scene of the tragedy, 
“on the top of the steps. I couldn’t abear to see 
no dead bodies;” and Ada’s friend disengaged 
herself from the policeman’s protecting clasp and 



10 


BOYS 


clung to the area railings for support, exclaiming 
afresh: never get over it—never!’’ 

‘‘But you must come in and give evidence wot 
you did ’ear,” expostulated P.C. Lee. “I don’t 
believe myself as anything criminal ’as occurred; 
but I’ll just ring and ast.” 

“I’d take my dyin’ oath them was the very 
words that murderer says to me,” cried Ada’s 
friend, jibbing on the top step as the minion of the 
law put forth a large hand to assist her down. 
“ ‘I’ve Idlled your master,’ says ’e, despairin’ like, 
as if it was no use to try an’ ’ide it.” 

P.C. Lee proceeded to perform a solo on the bell 
very different to the two timid tintinnabulations 
that had preceded it during the last ten minutes; 
for while Ada’s friend sought the protection of the 
strong arm of the law, poor little Tod had screwed 
his courage to the sticking-point, gone back and 
rung the area bell, when, to his unspeakable relief, 
he was admitted by cook, just returned from 
church in so benign a humor that she forebore to 
scold him for being out at such untoward hours 
“without so much as a ’at,” and bestowed a piece 
of bread and dripping upon him ‘ ‘ to stop ’is teeth 
a-chatterin ’. ” , 

Whereupon, comforted and refreshed, he de¬ 
parted to find Peter. 

Meanwhile P.C. Lee insisted that he must see 
the missis, for Ada’s friend was unshaken in her 
evidence, question they never so, and the four 
maids at Number 9 declared that they could not 
sleep comfortably in their beds unless the search¬ 
light of his bull’s-eye was thrown on every dusky 



VAGARIES OF TOD AND PETER 11 


corner of the honse by P.C. Lee himself before he 
took his departure. 

Ada’s friend was seated weeping in the front 
hall surrounded by the others, when the mistress, 
fetched by Ada herself, and accompanied by Tod 
and Peter, descended to hold parley with P.C. 
Lee. 

‘‘I can’t understand it, ma’am,” concluded the 
policeman, after a long explanation, continually 
interrupted by Ada’s friend with such interpola¬ 
tions as: ^‘Oh, a hawful voice, that mournful”— 
‘‘Them was the very words,” etc. 

During this recital Tod and Peter crept further 
and further into the background, nudging each 
other in the ecstasy occasioned by such an unex¬ 
pected tribute to their histrionic powers. 

But their mother knows her Stevenson—and the 
twins—so before the narrative was nearly finished 
she turned swiftly upon them, demanding sternly: 

“Which of you was it?” 

“Young varmints!” said P.C. Lee to Ada’s 
friend, as he escorted her home; “I might ’a’ 
knowed it was them. ’Tain’t the fust time I’ve 
come across ’em, neither. , . /’ 

II 

THE SENDING 

When the time came for those twins. Tod and 
Peter, to go to public school, their mother seri¬ 
ously considered the advisability of putting them 


12 


BOYS 


into different ‘ ‘houses. ’ ’ At first she thought that, 
perhaps, it might make for righteousness to 
separate them. But on hearing the subject mooted, 
they so wholeheartedly fell in with her opinion, 
rapturously reviewing the possibility of ‘‘chang¬ 
ing houses’’ whenever they felt so inclined, that 
she instantly dismissed the idea; rightly coming 
to the conclusion that if their extraordinary re¬ 
semblance was a cause of general muddle and 
mystification while they were together, it would 
become confusion worse confounded were they 
separated. Moreover, she reflected that even 
schoolmasters are men of like passions with our¬ 
selves, and rightly refrained from adding to such 
a one’s already heavy burden by a separate super¬ 
intendence of the twins. 

Tod and Peter, whose mental attitude was al¬ 
ways that “all is for the best in the best possible 
of worlds,” decided that after all propinquity has 
its advantages, and rejoiced that family tradition 
sent them into a house whose head was proverbi¬ 
ally the “slackest old slackster in the whole 
school.” A dreamy, mild-mannered, gentlemanly 
man that master, who left the management of the 
“house” entirely to an extremely energetic wife 
and a “young brasher” (“brusher” is the famil¬ 
iar term for master in that school), whose prowess 
in the playing-fields was only equalled by his ex¬ 
treme fussiness where rules of his own making 
were concerned. 

“Not a bad chap,” the tmns decided after their 
first week; “but a bit like the German Emperor, 


VAGAEIES OF TOD AND PETER 13 


you know—^wants things all his own way. Still, if 
you humor the youth, he’s all right.” 

So successfully did they humor the “young 
brusher” in question that for the first month all 
went smoothly, and the house-master himself, a 
gentle optimist, ever ready to believe the best of 
boy-humanity, really thought that the “character” 
that had preceded them from preparatory school 
was perhaps over-emphasized. 

Their late headmaster, while giving them full 
credit for general integrity and fair abilities, had, 
in mercy to his brethren of the craft, pointed out 
that they were ever “ready to join in frivolity and 
insubordination, when not under my own eye.” 
They had to work, for they were on the Modern 
Side, and destined for the army, and in that par¬ 
ticular school, not the wiliest shirker in creation 
can escape the argus eye of the “head of the 
Modern,” or the retribution, swift, sharp, and 
sure, that follows any such line of conduct. 

But, bless you! ordinary work and games, at 
which both were good, never found sufficient scope 
for the energies of Tod and Peter, and by the time 
the first month was up they began their tricks. 

One Mr. Neatby, M.A., taught the twins chem¬ 
istry. Not that they went to him together. They 
were in different, though, as far as work went, 
parallel forms, and finding that their systematic 
“changing” was never so much as suspected, and 
therefore carried with it no spice of danger or 
adventure, they gave it up, devoting their energies 
to the tormenting of Mr. Neatby, who had by his 
severity incurred their august displeasure. 


14 


BOYS 


Mr. Neatby was tall, severe, and dignified. He 
really liked his subject, but felt, as a rule, little 
affection for his pupils. Nevertheless, he was 
conscientious to the last degree in the discharge 
of his duties. His way of expressing himself was 
what Peter called ‘‘essayish’’; he gave lines lav¬ 
ishly, and had but little mercy on the reckless 
breaker of test-tubes. He did not rant, or stamp, 
or call people by opprobrious names, as did many 
better loved masters. He was always cold, cut¬ 
ting, and superior. But the thing about him that 
most excited Peter’s animosity was his necktie. 

^^He wears revolting, jerry-built, Judas-like 
ties,” the indignant Peter proclaimed to an ad¬ 
miring audience of lower boys; ‘Hies that slip 
down and show a beastly, brassy stud. His socks, 
too, leave much to be desired; in fact, his extremi¬ 
ties altogether are such as betoken a bad, hard 
heart.” 

“Let me see,” said Tod softly, looking up from 
a book he was reading; “do you think that a send¬ 
ing might soften the man’s hard heart?” 

At this particular stage of the twins ’ career, Mr. 
Kipling was the God of their idolatry, and both of 
them had “gloated,” even in the manner of the 
immortal “Stalky” himself, over the vengeance of 
Ram Das. 

“It might be managed,” Peter answered, 
thoughtfully scratching his smooth chin; “but 
then again, it may be close-time for kittens just 
at present; don’t they generally bloom in the 
spring?” 

‘ ‘ There’s always plenty of kittens, you juggins, ’ ’ 


VAGAEIES OP TOD AND PETER 15 


ejaculated a prosaic friend. ‘‘Why, when I was 
down at the riding school this morning, there was 
a cat with six in an empty loose-box; they’ll have 
to drown five of ’em, they told me. D ’yonr people 
want one or what?” 

“7 want one,” Peter rejoined excitedly; “not 
one, bnt five, to give to a dear.friend.” 

“Shouldn’t think he’d be yonr dear friend 
long. ’ ’ 

“Oh, yes, he will. He’s an S.P.C.K., or what¬ 
ever it is. He’s awfully profane—^humane, I 
mean. ’ ’ 

“Well,” said the other boy, still unconvinced; 
“you can ask about ’em when you go for your 
lesson to-morrow morning. They weren’t half bad 
little beasts, but I shouldn’t advise you to give 
your friend more than one at a time, anyhow.” 

Both Tod and Peter went twice a week to the 
riding school in the town, as they were both des¬ 
tined for cavalry. Every underling about the place 
knew them well, and liked them. Their father had 
lived in the town during his last leave, jobbed his 
horses at the riding-master’s stables, and had him¬ 
self assisted at the lessons of elder brothers of 
Tod and Peter. 

Now there was at the school a certain Figgins, 
a generally handy man, or rather boy, who wor¬ 
shipped the ground the twins walked upon; and 
after their next lesson they and Figgins might 
have been seen holding long and earnest parley in 
the loose-box containing the cat and kittens. 

The twins laughed uproariously all the way 
home, and just as they reached the house, Peter 


16 


BOYS 


remarked: hate anything dead. Figgins has 

promised not one of ’em shall be drowned, and 
when they’re fit to be moved, he’ll tell old White 
he’s found good homes for the lot. And then— 
and then Tod, my boy! our dear teacher shall have 
’em alive, ‘alive, all ^ive oh! alive, all alive oh!’ ” 
and Peter burst into song in the exuberance of 
his joy. 

Mr. Neatby lived in lodgings within a convenient 
distance of the school. He was therefore spared 
any intercourse with the boys after school hours, 
and usually spent his evenings in correcting in¬ 
numerable marble-boarded exercise books, contain¬ 
ing chemistry notes. He was so engaged one eve¬ 
ning about nine o’clock, when his landlady en¬ 
tered the room and laid a square parcel at his 
elbow. 

He finished correcting the book he had in hand, 
and took another, when his attention was ar¬ 
rested by an indescribable sound. 

Mr. Neatby lifted his head and gazed about the 
room. “Could it be a mouse under the skirting- 
board?” he wondered. Then half unconsciously 
his eyes fell on the parcel his landlady had brought 
into the room. It was an oblong cardboard box, 
about the size of an ordinary shoe-box. But, al¬ 
though tied up with string, it was not wrapped in 
paper, and on looking at it more closely, Mr. 
Neatby discovered that the top was riddled with 
small holes. 

Had it been summer, he, being something of a 
naturalist, would have at once concluded that 


VAGAKIES OF TOD AND PETEK 17 


someone had sent him some rare caterpillars, hut 
what caterpillars are to be found in November? 

He drew the parcel toward him, and there arose 
that curious sound again, louder and more insis¬ 
tent. He hastily cut the string and removed the 
lid of the box, and inside, reposing on a nest of 
hay, lay a very young and mewey kitten. A kitten 
who most evidently was homesick and aggrieved at 
being reft from the maternal bosom. A sprawly, 
squirmy, noisy kitten, that immediately proceeded 
to climb out of the box and crawl uncertainly to 
Mr. Neatby’s blotting-pad, where it collapsed into 
a dismal little heap, mewing louder than ever. 

‘‘There must be some mistake,’’ muttered Mr. 
Neatby, flushed and perturbed. “No one would 
send me a kitten; that stupid woman must have 
made some muddle or other,” and he arose hastily 
and rang the bell. 

He so rarely rang his bell after his modest sup¬ 
per had been cleared away that Mrs. Vyner, his 
landlady, had given up expecting him to do so, 
and had on this occasion “just stepped out,” as 
she would have put it, to see a neighbor. 

Mr. Neatby rang, and rang in vain, finally so far 
departing from his decorously distant demeanor 
as to go to the top of the kitchen stairs and shout. 
But the faint mewing of the kitten was the only 
answer to his outcries, and baflled and annoyed he 
returned to his sitting-room to find that the kitten 
had upset the red ink over Tod’s chemistry notes, 
which, in company with many others, lay open on 
the table, and was feebly attempting to lap it up. 

“Poor little thing; it’s hungry,” he thought to 


18 


BOYS 


himself. And being, indeed, as Peter said, a very 
humane man, he lifted it from the table, and went 
to his sideboard to see if he could find any milk. 
He did find some in the cupboard underneath 
where it had no business to be, and pouring some 
into a saucer, laid it on the floor beside the kit¬ 
ten, who proceeded to refresh itself with com¬ 
mendable promptitude. 

Then, as his landlady still made no appearance, 
Mr. Neatby bethought him of looking at the parcel 
to see whether the kitten had been left at the 
wrong house. But no; attached to the string was 
a label, clearly addressed in a flowing, clerkly 
hand, ‘‘S. S. Neatby, Esq., M.A.,’’ followed by his 
address, accurate as to number, street, and even 
town. 

Once more he sat down in his chair, and leant 
his head on his hand to think, when he perceived, 
tucked into the hay at one side of the box, a card, 
and drew it forth hastily; a plain glazed visiting 
card on which was inscribed the words, ‘‘From a 
grateful friend,’’ in the same excellent handwrit¬ 
ing as the label. 

Mr. Neatby blushed, and looked guiltily at the 
happily supping kitten. In addition to being hu¬ 
mane, Mr. Neatby was also charitable, and there 
were many poor who had reason to be grateful to 
him. But as he always gave alms through a third 
person, and was one of those modest people who 
take care that their left hand knows not what the 
right hand doeth, he felt quite upset. 

Presently he heard his landlady and her niece 
come in, and rang again. 


VAGARIES OF TOD AND PETER 19 


‘‘Wlio brought this box, Mrs. Vyner?’’ he asked, 
holding it up toward her. 

‘‘I can’t say, sir, I’m sure. It was dark when I 
answered the door, and a young man—leastways, 
I think ’e was young—simply give it into my ’ands 
and ran down the steps again. I ’eld it under the 
gas in the ’all, sir, and read the label, as it was for 
you right enough, so I brings it in and lays it 
down without never interruptin’ you, sir, like you 
said. ’ ’ 

There was a kitten in that hox/^ Mr. Neatby 
said solemnly, in such a tone as might have an¬ 
nounced some national calamity. 

‘‘Sakes alive! you don’t say so, sir,” cried Mrs. 
Vyner in great excitement; shall you keep it, 
sir!” 

‘‘I don’t know yet,” Mr. Neatby said gravely; 
“it must stay here for to-night anyway.” 

“It’s a pretty little thing, sir,” said the land¬ 
lady, stooping down to look at it where it lay bask¬ 
ing in the heat of the fire. ‘ ‘ ’Twould be company 
for you, wouldn’t it, sir!” 

“Hadn’t it better go with you to the kitchen for 
to-night, Mrs. Vyner!” Mr. Neatby asked persua¬ 
sively, and Mrs. Vyner, with many protestations 
of wonder, gathered up the kitten into her apron 
and departed to the lower regions, where she in¬ 
formed the niece who lived with her that their 
lodger ‘ ‘ ’adn’t spoken so many words to ’er never 
before, no, not in a month of Sundays.” 

Mr. Neatby threw the box into his capacious 
waste-paper basket, but he put the card and label 


20 BOYS 

carefully away in one of the pigeon-holes of his 
desk. 

Next day, on his return from morning school, he 
found a white cardboard hat-box, big enough to 
contain the most umbrageous matinee hat ever 
worn, set right in the middle of his table, and he 
felt distinctly annoyed. His landlady followed 
him into the sitting-room to lay lunch, and he, 
pointing to the offending box, said coldly: 
must ask you not to leave your parcels in my 
room, Mrs. Vyner.’’ 

Mrs. Vyner bridled, and seizing the box, held it 
out toward him, remarking aggrievedly: ‘‘If so 
be as you refers to this ’ere, sir, I must ast you 
to look ’oo it’s addressed to. It’s put plain enough 
for you, sir.” 

“But I assure you,” Mr. Neatby cried, recoiling 
from the proffered hat-box, “that I haven’t or¬ 
dered a hat of any kind.” 

“ Any’ow,” said Mrs. Vyner scornfully, “I don’t 
suppose, sir, as you’d order your ’ats from 
Madame Looeese, if you ’ad. I thought per’aps 
you’d bought a present for your young lady.” 

“Mrs. Vyner,” replied Mr. Neatby, in a voice 
glacial as liquid air itself, “you forget yourself.” 

Mrs. Vyner set down the box with an angry 
thump, and proceeded to lay the cloth in injured 
silence. 

When she had gone, Mr. Neatby approached the 
mysterious package delicately, much as though it 
had been an infernal machine of some sort, and 
regarded it searchingly on all sides. It most cer¬ 
tainly emanated from the millinery establishment 


VAGAEIES OF TOD AND PETEE 21 


of ‘‘Madame Louise/’ but was none the less cer¬ 
tainly addressed in sprawly, feminine handwriting 
to “S. S. Neatby, Esq., M.A.” 

Just then Mrs. Vyner opened the door, saying 
waspishly, ‘ ‘ ’Ere’s your kitting, sir; it keeps get¬ 
ting under my feet while I’m dishin’ up.” 

It seemed to have gained considerable vigor 
during the night, for it rushed across the room 
and up the curtain. 

But Mr. Neatby had screwed his courage to the 
sticking-place, and even the tempestuous entry of 
the kitten could not turn him from his purpose. 
Penknife in hand, he cut the string of the bonnet- 
box, and lifted the lid timidly, prepared no doubt 
for some tissue-paper protected “confection” 
within. When, lo! even as that of the shoe-box 
on the previous night was this interior; hay, dry 
and fragrant of stable, met his astonished gaze, 
while seated in its midst was a tabby kitten, who 
gathered herself together for a spring the instant 
the lid was lifted, and sprang with such good-will 
as to turn the box over on its side, when she imme¬ 
diately dashed under the table. 

Mr. Neatby gazed, as if hypnotized, at the 
tumbled box, till the rattling of dishes outside 
warned him of the near approach of his landlady 
with lunch, and roused him from his trance. 

He stooped hastily, thrust the scattered hay into 
the band-box, clapped on the lid, and placed it 
under the knee-hole of his writing table. 

The door was opened rather suddenly to admit 
Mrs. Vyner; kitten number one descended from 
the curtain, and Mr. Neatby found himself almost 


22 


BOYS 


praying that kitten nnmber two would stay under 
the table while his landlady was in the room. Mrs. 
Vyner glanced disdainfully in the direction of the 
band-box, noted that the string had been cut, set 
the dishes on the table with somewhat unnecessary 
violence, and departed without having opened her 
lips, just as the two kittens frisked out from be¬ 
neath the table. 

Mr. Neatby, harrassed and flushed ‘‘all over his 
eminent forehead,” did not begin his lunch. He 
went back to the band-box again, studied the label 
anew, and finally rummaged in the hay inside. 

His search was rewarded by the discovery of a 
rather dirty piece of paper, on which was written 
“A Present from Framilode,” Framilode being a 
village in the neighborhood, celebrated for the 
manufacture of a certain kind of mug which al¬ 
ways bore that legend. He put it carefully beside 
the other card and label in his desk, and returned 
to his lunch with but small appetite, and a frown 
of perplexity upon his brow. The kittens set up a 
perfect chorus of mewing; Mr. Neatby braced 
himself to explain the new arrival to Mrs. Vyner, 
and rang for the pudding. 

• •••••• 

“IFs my belief, sir,” said Mrs. Vyner that eve¬ 
ning, “that somebody^s a puttin’ a ’oaf upon you. 
I sent my niece to that there Madame Looeese’s 
with the box lid, an’ she see madame ’erself, and 
she says as it’s a hold box, an’ that they certainly 
never sent you no box, nor wouldn’t think of such 
a liberty, and you one of the school gentlemen and 
all. But my niece, she said as madame did laugh 


VAGAKIES OF TOD AND PETER 23 


when she ’eard about the kitten, and ’er young 
ladies, too.’’ 

Mr. Neatby writhed. 

To a man of his reserved and sensitive tempera¬ 
ment, the reflection that his name could by any 
possibility be bandied about by a milliner and her 
assistants was little short of maddening. If he 
could then and there have ordered Mrs. Vyner ‘‘to 
take five hundred lines,” it might have given him 
some relief. But in all things he was a just man, 
and he knew that his landlady had at all events 
meant kindly in trying to discover the perpetrator 
of the outrage; for the fact remained that some¬ 
body had most assuredly “put a ’oax” on him in 
the shape of the liveliest of tabby kittens. 

It never occurred to him to suspect any of the 
boys. For how could one of them come by either 
band-box or kittens ? To be sure there were some 
day boys, but it happened that these were nearly 
all “on the Classical,” and Mr. Neatby had but 
little to do with them. 

Of course he reckoned without the ubiquitous 
Figgins, who, unlike Mr. Neatby, had a young lady, 
who was employed by Madame Louise, and for 
whom it was an easy matter both to procure a 
disused band-box and a new label. 

“You’re certain he got them all right?” whis¬ 
pered Peter to Figgins at his next lesson, as that 
worthy rushed forward officiously to settle the sack 
on the horse’s back. “He gave me back my notes 
simply smothered in red ink, and I thought I saw 
a mark like a kitten’s paw, but I couldn’t be 
sure. ’ ’ 


24 


BOYS 


‘‘Law bless yon! yes, sir, ’e got ’em right 
enough. I took ’em myself, and wot’s more, both 
of ’em’s there still, for I passed by this mornin’ 
and ’appened to look down the airey, and there 
they both was as peart as print. I s’pose we’d 
better wait a day or so for the next ’nn, ’adn’t 
us?” 

“Yes, Figgins, wait two days till you see me 
again, ’ ’ and Peter dug his knees into his horse and 
rode at the first jump. 

‘“It’s rather decent of him to lieep them,” 
thought Peter to himself, who was tender-hearted 
where animals were concerned. “Perhaps, if he 
doesn’t clap on any more lines for a bit. I’ll let 
him off with two.” 

But, alas for good intentions. When Peter got 
back to the house, he found Tod bursting with 
indignation. For at “Practical Chemistry,” that 
very morning. Tod, who was supposed to be en¬ 
gaged in the manufacture of hydrogen, used so 
many conflicting ingredients as to cause an explo¬ 
sion and dense smoke, and a smell so appalling that 
it drove the whole class into the corridor, and 
caused several testy masters to send indignant 
messages demanding where the infernal smell 
came from. 

Mr. Neatby, exasperated to the last degree, not 
only told Tod to take five hundred lines, but bade 
him return the very next half holiday and spend 
the afternoon in doing similar experiments under 
his master’s supervision. 

Tod confided his grievance to Peter at great 
length, and concluded his recital with the injunc- 


VAGARIES OF TOD AND PETER 25 


tion, ‘^Let him Have all three, the beast! I wish 
they were young gorillas/’ 

• •••••• 

Mr. Neatby was very busy. He was taking ex¬ 
tra duty for a master who was ill, and for three 
or four days after the arrival of the second kitten 
really had not a moment to call his own, so, as 
Mrs. Vyner seemed to take quite kindly to the 
new arrivals—only taking care to charge her lod¬ 
ger an extra quart of milk daily for their main¬ 
tenance—he almost forgot their existence. 

By Saturday evening he had accumulated a 
mass of mid-term examination work to correct, 
and directly after supper set himself down to it, 
with four clear hours before him, for he often 
worked till after midnight. 

His lamp was trimmed, his fire burned brightly, 
and one kitten, the first, sat purring on the hearth. 
That, and the scratching of Mr. Neatby’s pen as 
he corrected the generally mistaken views of boys 
as to the nature of an element, were the only 
sounds till there came a thunderous rap outside, 
and the door-bell pealed loudly. 

Mr. Neatby frowned, but never looked up from 
his corrections. He had not been long at the 
school, and was not upon intimate terms with any 
of the masters, so that it was hardly likely to be a 
caller for him. He heard somebody open the front 
door, then some vehicle drive away. A moment 
later there was a knock at his door, and Jemima, 
Mrs. Vyner’s niece, came in, bearing a hamper. 

^‘Please, sir, this ’ave just come by rail; there 
wasn’t nothing to pay.” 


26 


BOYS 


^‘Very well/’ Mr. Neatby answered witbont 
looking np; ‘‘put it down, please; I can’t attend 
to it just now.” 

Jemima did as she was told, and once more 
silence settled upon the room. 

But not for long. Kitten number one got rest¬ 
less; it walked round and round the hamper, and 
sniffed and mewed, and mewed and sniffed, with 
irritating persistency. Moreover, a curious muf¬ 
fled echo seemed to accompany its mewing. Mr. 
Neatby bore it for five minutes, then pushed back 
his chair, caught the disturbing kitten by the 
scruff of its neck, and bore it to the top of the 
kitchen stairs, calling to Jemima to take it down. 
That young lady obeyed his summons, taking the 
kitten tenderly into her arms with many endear¬ 
ments ; but all the same she remarked to her aunt, 
‘‘Well, I do think as ’e might manage to look after 
one on ’em ’isself, that I do.” 

Mr. Neatby went back to his papers and cor¬ 
rected with more vigor than before; but, in spite 
of his haste, in spite of his absorption, the muffled 
mewing continued. 

At last he laid down his pen and listened. 
“Surely,” he thought, “it can’t sound like that 
from downstairs. I must have got the sound on 
my nerves; it’s really most annoying.” It was 
annoying; it grew louder and louder till it seemed 
at his very side. 

Mr. Neatby was endowed with great powers, 
both of self-control and concentration. Having 
, decided that the sound was in his imagination, and 


VAGARIES OF TOD AND PETER 27 


not actual, lie went on with the paper that he was 
correcting, but as he placed it on the top of the 
growing pile he chanced to notice the hamper 
which was placed on the hearthrug close beside 
him. ‘ ^ Apples, I suppose, from home, ’ ’ he thought 
to himself; ‘‘but all the same, I’d better see.” He 
lifted it on to his knee. “Too light for apples,” 
he thought again. “What can they have sent?” 

The lid was not very tightly fastened, and a 
slash or two of the penknife at the string restrain¬ 
ing it brought it away. 

Hay, and again hay, in this case forming the 
cosy nest of two kittens, one tortoiseshell and one 
black. Both lively and vociferous beyond either 
of their predecessors. Mr. Neatby ejaculated just 
one word, and sat perfectly still with the open 
hamper on his knee. The kittens climbed out and 
made hay among his papers, but he took no notice. 
“An angry man was he,” and when a man of his 
temperament is angry, he usually sits tight. The 
kittens got tired of the table, and jumped lightly 
to the floor, carrying a few dozen papers with 
them in their flight, but still Mr. Neatby sat on 
staring into space. 

When at last he roused himself, he once more 
sought some solution of the mystery in the ad¬ 
dress label, but the yellow railway label on the 
back had been torn away, and only “ton” re¬ 
mained. The address itself was printed very 
neatly by hand. 

Inside the hamper he found a little pink envelope 
with nicked edges such as servants love. He 


28 


BOYS 


opened it, and printed by the same hand, on a piece 
of paper to match, was the following verse: 

The kitten’s a persistent beast, 

It comes when you expect it least, 

It comes in ones, it comes in twos— 

And when it comes it always mews. 

‘‘Ah!^’ Mr. Neatby said softly to himself, 
‘‘some boy is at the bottom of this.’^ 

The clock struck twelve, and he remembered 
with a start that both his landlady and Jemima 
would certainly be in bed. 

What was to be done with the kittens ? 

He was far too kind hearted to turn them out of 
doors on a cold November night. They were really 
uncommonly pretty little beasts, and as he watched 
their gambles he found himself quoting: 

Alas! regardless of their doom, 

The little victims play, 

and then realized that they had no business to be 
playing at all at that time of night, and that he 
certainly wanted to go to bed. 

He really was a much tried man that night. 
First, he had to catch the kittens and put them in 
the hamper, and as fast as he put one in, the other 
jumped out. This took some time. Then he car¬ 
ried the hamper up to bed with him, the kittens 
making frantic efforts to escape the while. And 
when at last he did get to bed, he had to get up 
again to let them out of the hamper, for they 
made such a frightful din no mortal could sleep. 


VAGARIES OF TOD AND PETER 29- 


They finally elected to settle down on Mr. Neatby’s 
bed, and in the morning one of them nngratefnlly 
scratched his nose because he happened to move 
when the kitten in question chose to walk over his 
face. 

When at last he arose from very broken slum¬ 
bers, the black kitten upset the shaving water and 
scalded its foot, and made a dreadful uproar, and 
the tortoiseshell, while investigating the mantel¬ 
piece, upset and threw into the grate a blue vase 
belonging to Mrs. Vyner. 

In chapel on Sunday morning. Tod and Peter 
noted gleefully the long scratch on ‘ ‘ old Stinks ’ ’ ^ 
nose (‘‘Stinks’’ being, I regret to say, the name 
by which Mr. Neatby was known among his pu¬ 
pils). And curiosity as to how he was getting on 
with his rapidly increasing family of cats con¬ 
sumed them. In the afternoon they walked up 
and down the road outside his lodgings for nearly 
an hour, but nothing did they discover; for Mrs. 
Vyner’s windows were shrouded by white cur¬ 
tains, no one went in or out of the house, and all 
their loitering was not rewarded by so much as 
hearing a distant mew. 

The fact was that Mr. Neatby had gone for a 
long walk to try and work off his irritation. That 
morning, while he was still at breakfast, Mrs. 
Vyner had appeared in his sitting-room, and some¬ 
what stormily informed him that her “ ’ouse was 
not a ’ome for lost cats, nor never ’ad been.” And 
she concluded her harangue as follows: 

“I’ve ’ad gentlemen, masters at the school, for 
twelve year come Michaelmas, and some ’ave bin 


30 


BOYS 


tronble enongh, tke Lard knows. With their foot¬ 
ball and ’ockey, and ’ot baths in the middle of the 
afternoon, and the mnd on their flannings some¬ 
thing hawfnl; but a gentleman as snrronnded ’im- 
self with cats in sech numbers I never ’ave ’ad 
nor never won’t again, I ’opes and prays. And 
although it do go again my conscience to do it of 
a Sunday, I must ast you, sir, to take a week’s 
notice from yesterday. For start a fresh week 
with sech goin’s on, and cats a cornin’ by every 
post as it were, I can’t; no, not if the king ’imself 
was to ast me on ’is bended knees.” 

In vain poor Mr. Neatby pointed out that, far 
from ^‘surrounding himself” with kittens, they 
were thrust upon him he knew not by whom or 
from whence. That he had no intention of keep¬ 
ing any of them if Mrs. Vyner objected, and that 
it would really be extremely inconvenient for him 
to have to seek new rooms in the middle of the 
term. 

Mrs. Vyner was implacable. “I’m very upset 
about it, too, sir,” she answered, more in sorrow 
than in anger; “for I did think as ’ow I’d got a 
nice quiet gentleman, you not bein’ given to them 
’orrid games as is so dirty, nor wantin’ an over 
amount of cookin’. But a gentleman as ’eaven 
appears to rain cats on like it do on you is not 
for the likes of me nor shan’t be. And though I’m 
truly sorry as you should be so afflicted, I must ast 
you to leave my ’ouse, sir, next Saturday as ever 
is, and that’s my last word.” 

It wasn’t, not by a long way; for although Mr. 
Neatby reasoned, nay, even almost implored Mrs. 


VAGARIES OF TOD AND PETER 31 


Vyner to reconsider her decision, she would hardly 
let him get a word in edgeways, and remained un¬ 
shaken in her desire that he should vacate her 
rooms. ^Ow do I know, sir,^’ she asked again 
and again, ‘‘wot hanimals may be sent you next? 
My ’eart would be in my mouth every time the 
door-bell rang.’^ 

Truly, Tod and Peter had planned a fearful 
vengeance had they only known it. But they did 
not know it, and their unsatisfied curiosity was 
their undoing. On Monday morning at the riding 
school they arranged with Figgins that he was to 
leave the fifth kitten at Mr. Neatby’s rooms that 
afternoon, just before afternoon school finished. 
The despatch of the hamper had been managed by 
a railway man, a friend of Figgins, whose cart 
started from a parcel-receiving office close to the 
riding school, and he delivered the hamper on his 
evening round. 

Directly school came out, the twins decided to 
rush down to Mr. Neatby’s rooms before lock-up, 
to ask some frivolous question about a paper he 
had set, and perhaps by great good luck be pres¬ 
ent at the unveiling of the end of the sending. All 
fell out exactly as they had arranged. Figgins 
took the parcel. Mrs. Vyner received it, ad¬ 
dressed as before to “S. S. Neatby, Esq., M.A.’’ 
(his real name was “Stuart,’^ not “Stinks”), car¬ 
ried it grimly into his sitting-room, and laid it on 
the table. She removed all her own ornaments 
from the chimneypiece and sideboard, and then 
went downstairs and brought up all four kittens 
(poor Mr. Neatby had not yet had time to arrange 


32 


BOYS 


for their painless destruction), and shut them up 
in the room to await their owner’s return. , 

At ten minutes past five he hastened in, trod on 
one of the kittens as he entered the room, and 
struck a match to light his lamp. The kitten nois¬ 
ily proclaimed its injury, and the other three ex¬ 
pressed their sympathy in similar terms. When 
he caught sight of the brown-paper parcel on the 
table he turned pale. The very feel of it was 
enough, and even before he had torn otf the cover 
he was sure of its contents. Yes, in a common 
little bird cage was a fat, white kitten, and an un¬ 
commonly tight fit she was. 

He did not attempt to let her out, though her 
position was plainly one of extreme discomfort, 
but stood with the cage in his hands, and the four 
mewing kittens about his feet, in so universally 
distrustful a frame of mind that he began to think 
that Mrs. Vyner herself was in the plot to victim¬ 
ize him. 

The door was opened, and his landlady’s voice 
announced: ‘‘Two young gentlemen to see you, 
sir.” 

Fresh colored and handsome, ruddy from their 
run in the cold evening air, square-shouldered and 
upstanding. Tod and Peter allowed their two pairs 
of candid blue eyes to travel from their master’s 
angry face to his hands, from his hands holding 
the caged kitten to his feet, where congregated 
the rest of the sending, and then exclaimed in a 
chorus of genial astonishment: “MTiy, sir, what 
a lot of kittens you keep! ’ ’ 

Now, although he had been at the school three 


VAGAEIES OF TOD AND PETER 33 


terms, no boy had ever ventnred to call upon Mr. 
Neatby before. Other masters might occasionally 
ask boys to tea or permit an occasional call out 
of school hours to arrange about house matches, 
etc. But he had ever discouraged any familiarity 
whatsoever, and that Tod and Peter should dare 
to intrude upon him at such a moment seemed to 
him, as indeed it was, a piece of unparalleled im¬ 
pertinence. 

“What do you want here?’’ he asked angrily. 
“It’s after lock-up.” 

“Mr. Ord gave us leave to come,” Peter said 
eagerly. “We don’t understand this question, sir. 
Could you explain? What a noise those kittens 
do make, don’t they?” 

Now if Tod could only have refrained from 
looking at Peter, Mr. Neatby might have remained 
forever in the dark as to the mystery of the kit¬ 
tens. But, even as Peter spoke. Tod, unaware 
that the light from the master’s lamp shone full 
on his face, winked delightedly at his brother, and 
in a flash Mr. Neatby connected their unexpected 
and unnecessary visit with those equally unwel¬ 
come visitants whose advent during the past week 
had entailed so much annoyance upon him. 

Taking no notice of the paper Peter held out 
toward him, he laid the little cage on the table, 
and said very quietly: 

“Now that you are here, you will perhaps kindly 
explain what you mean by sending all these ani¬ 
mals to me. ’ ’ 

“Us, sir!” the twins exclaimed breathlessly, 
and as usual in chorus—“Us!” 


34 


BOYS 


‘‘Did you or did you not cause these five kittens 
to be sent to meV’ Mr. Neatby asked again. 

Dead silence. 

As Tod said afterward, “It was one of those 
beastly yes or no questions that there’s no getting 
out of.’’ 

“Did you or did you not?” Mr. Neatby asked 
again, a little louder than before, though even the 
kittens had ceased mewing and seemed to be lis¬ 
tening. “But I know you did, and I wish to know 
further what you mean by a piece of such intoler¬ 
able impertinence, and such wanton defiance of 
school rules.” 

“There’s no rule about sending kittens, sir,” 
murmured Peter, with the least suspicion of a 
giggle in his voice. 

That giggle broke down the last barrier of Mr. 
Neatby’s self-control. For full five minutes he 
permitted himself to thunder at those boys, finally 
bidding them take all five kittens away with them 
there and then. 

“But we can’t, sir; we can^t take them back to 
the house,” pleaded Tod. “Whatever w^ould Mrs. 
Ord say?” 

“Well, you must take them away from here, 
anyway, and what’s more, you must give up the 
names of your confederates, that I may take pro¬ 
ceedings against them for their unwarrantable in¬ 
terference with my privacy. Who were they, now? 
At once!” 

“It’s absolutely impossible for us to do that, 
sir,” Peter said firmly, and Tod might have been 


VAGAEIES OF TOD AND PETER 35 


heard to mnnnnr something about ‘‘can’t and 
won’t. ’ ’ 

“Then,” said Mr. Neatby, “you will both come 
with me to the principal now at once.” 

• •••••• 

The principal of that school is one of the young¬ 
est headmasters in England, and he would not be 
the success he is did he not possess a sense of 
humor. He partially pacified Mr. Neatby; he vig¬ 
orously “tanned” Tod and Peter there and then, 
and during the remainder of the evening he 
laughed to himself more than once. 

For the remainder of the term Tod and Peter 
found their comings and goings so perpetually 
watched and suspected by the “young brusher” 
aforesaid, that even the rapturous recollection of 
the success of their sending was somewhat dimmed. 
But it was not they who suffered most; to this day 
Mr. Neatby suspects of sinister intention anyone 
who so much as mentions kittens in his presence, 
and new boys always wonder why their school¬ 
fellows are so anxious that they should mew in the 
chemistry lectures. They only do it once. 

m 

THE BOY THAT DIDN’t COMB 

During the first part of the next, the Easter, 
term the twins were so closely watched that their 
genius for mischief had small scope. Whereupon 
the authorities, finding them apparently absorbed 
in games and the gene'ral routine, relaxed their 
vigilance. 


36 


BOYS 


At tHe beginning of February the weather was 
mild and pleasant, with just enough rain to keep 
the footer ground in good order. But at the end 
of that fickle month there came a frost, the aggra¬ 
vating sort of frost that makes a field too hard 
for football and yet leads to no skating. 

The never long dormant spirit of mischief in 
the twins awoke. 

As usual, it was Peter who began it, though Tod 
was the innocent first cause. 

Just after first lesson, as Tod was hurrying from 
one classroom to another, he met the principal in 
the corridor, who bade him ask his form-master 
to come and speak to him at a quarter past ten. 
Further down the corridor Tod met his twin, who 
instantly demanded what the ‘‘PoF’ wanted, and 
on being informed, went upon his way. 

Peter might have been seen to stop more than 
one schoolfellow as he went—the corridor was full 
of boys changing classrooms—and when he reached 
his own he delivered a message to the effect that 
the Head would like to see his form-master at ten- 
fifteen. 

Peter’s form-master, familiarly known as ‘ ‘ Pig- 
Face,’’ from a fancied resemblance to that animal 
in the matter of nose, is a testy man, much given to 
abusing his form and to the use of opprobious 
epithets seriously reflecting upon the veracity of 
boys in general; so, on receipt of the Head’s mes¬ 
sage, he knuckled Peter’s head, called him a 
‘‘shuffling little beast,” set a complicated sum in 
discount for his form to wrestle with during his 
absence, and hurried away, fuming inwardly at the 


VAGARIES OF TOD AND PETER 37 


unreason of such a summons in the middle of 
morning school. When he arrived at the princi- 
paPs room he found six other masters also in wait¬ 
ing, but the principal himself was not there. 

It happened that that gentleman had met Tod^s 
form-master three minutes after he had seen Tod, 
he said what he had to say there and then in the 
corridor, and dismissed the matter from his mind. 

The seven masters waited in a grumpy group 
for ten good minutes, when, just as they had de¬ 
cided upon immediate departure, the principal 
himself rushed in and gazed in somewhat indig¬ 
nant astonishment at the assembled multitude. 

It took nearly five minutes more to explain the 
situation, and the only boy whose conduct in de¬ 
livering the various messages seemed not wholly 
inexplicable appeared to be Peter. For the prin¬ 
cipal good-naturedly came to the conclusion that 
it must have been Peter that he met, not Tod, and 
that Peter had misunderstood him. 

Such a charitable view of Peter’s conduct, how¬ 
ever, could not last long, seeing that six angry 
masters rushed hack to their respective forms to 
inflict lines upon six perfectly innocent boys, who 
were not slow to protest that the message was 
entrusted to them by another. 

During the morning three young gentlemen 
from the Modern and four from the Classical re¬ 
ceived a summons ‘Go the principal at twelve,” 
and of course Tod and Peter were of the number, 
both looking so seraphically innocent that the 
principal was perfectly sure that it was “a put-up 
thing.” In this instance the innocent suffered 


38 


BOYS 


with the guilty, for Tod got five hundred lines as 
well as Peter. But they both agreed that to have 
so scored off seven ‘‘brushers^’ at one time was 
well worth the lines. 

Three days afterward Tod’s nose bled toward 
the end of morning school and he was dismissed to 
his house to clean up. As he raced along the cor¬ 
ridor he noticed that the door of the little room 
into which the rope of the school bell descended 
was left open, and, peeping in, he discovered that 
Hooper, the trusty porter, was not within. 

In far less time than it takes to write the words. 
Tod had rushed in, and the great school bell that 
dismisses morning school rang loud and clear over 
the peaceful playing-fields surrounding the school 
buildings, still humming with the busy life within. 

Every boy and every master stopped short in 
what he was doing and looked at the clock. Those 
possessed of watches consulted them, shook them, 
listened to them, dubiously pressing them to un¬ 
believing ears. And as the clocks in that school 
are by no means beyond reproach, being worked by 
a system of electricity that is, to say the least of 
it, capricious in its conduct, all came, not unwil¬ 
lingly, to the conclusion that morning work had 
indeed ended. Only the Head of the Modern, that 
man of iron endurance, whose whole scheme of 
creation seemed bounded by the exigencies of the 
Civil Service Commissioners, refused to believe 
that his watch was wrong, and continued to dis¬ 
cuss the ‘‘directrix and eccentric” of a certain 
angle until it was really twelve o ’clock; while one 
of the French masters, hailing from Geneva, pro- 


VAGARIES OF TOD AND PETER 39 

claimed tlie xmreliability of English clocks in gen¬ 
eral. 

Meanwhile Hooper, who had gone down to the 
lodge to speak to his wife, could hardly believe his 
ears when his own sacred bell clanged, somewhat 
irresponsibly and gaily it is true, without his 
agency. 

He rushed up the drive to discover the perpe¬ 
trator of this extraordinary outrage, only to meet 
a throng of masters and boys streaming out into 
the playground full twenty minutes before the ap¬ 
pointed hour. 

Tod was nearly at his house by this time, and 
when he did arrive, hastened to the matron to 
descant upon the terrific hemorrhage that had oc¬ 
curred in his nose. 

But Nemesis was never very leaden-footed where 
the twins were concerned. 

‘ ‘ Other chaps, ’ ^ Tod remarked mournfully, ‘ ‘ can 
break all sorts of rules and do no end of mischief 
and never get found out, but if we do the least little 
thing someone’s certain to be down on us like a 
hundred of bricks, or else we ’re obliged to own up 
to save somebody else.” 

In this case it was the latter course that Tod had 
to pursue. The principal was exceedingly angry 
at such a wanton curtailment of the last hour of 
morning school, and gave it out in the afternoon 
that if the amateur bellringer did not disclose him¬ 
self that very day, the whole school should stay in 
on the next half-holiday; and the frost had broken 
and football was in full swing once more. 


40 


BOYS 


Of course Tod sought the principal at the earli¬ 
est opportunity and owned up. 

When he appeared in the principal’s room after 
afternoon school he made, it is true, a valiant ef¬ 
fort to present himself with due solemnity, but his 
round face was absurdly chubby and cheerful, and 
when the principal looked up from the letter he 
was writing to see who the intruder was, he sighed 
deeply. 

‘‘You again, Beaton!” he exclaimed wearily. 
“So it was yoUy was it, who rang that bell? Wliat 
on earth did you do it for?” 

“My nose bled, sir . . .” Tod began eagerly. 

“What had your nose to do with it?” 

“Everything, sir. I was sent out of class . . .” 

“Sent out of class?” the principal repeated 
sternly. 

“Because I made such a mess,” Tod hastened 
to add; “and the little door was open—and so I 
rang the bell.” 

“Beaton, when will you cease to play these 
senseless and annoying tricks? Your folly caused 
six hundred boys, to say nothing of the masters, 
to lose twenty precious minutes. If I punished 
you as you deserve, you ought to stay in for twenty 
minutes each day for six hundred days ...” 

Tod gasped. 

“But I won’t do that. Instead, you must do a 
thousand lines, to be given up by the end of this 
week. I shall not cane you, as I have no doubt 
you would infinitely prefer it. ’ ’ 

A good many boys assisted to write those lines, 
and the impost was given up at its appointed time. 


VAGAEIES OF TOD AND PETER 41 


Hockey leagues were on and Peter was playing 
in his house team. On the morning of the last 
practice before an important match, he acknowl¬ 
edged so barely bowing an acquaintance with cer¬ 
tain French idioms beloved of the French master 
—for was he not their author?—that Peter was 
told to stay in after morning school and learn 
them. 

Peter did nothing of the kind; on the contrary, 
he went out at the usual hour and played hockey 
with his accustomed vigor, with the result that the 
French master sent for him that afternoon to know 
why he had not done as he was told. 

Peter pleaded ‘^a very important engagement,’’ 
and, on being pressed to disclose the nature of that 
same, as usual answered quite truthfully. The 
French master, not unnaturally exasperated, forth¬ 
with reported him to the Head of the Modern, with 
the result that Peter was hauled up and bidden to 
stay in on the next half-holiday; the very half¬ 
holiday on which his house was to play its bitterest 
rival. 

During the remainder of that term he got into 
several rows with his form-master, and Tod was 
equally unlucky, so that by the time the Easter 
holidays arrived both boys were quite ready for 
them and left school vowing vengeance on their 
persecutors. 

Their parents were in India, so they went to 
spend the holidays with a jolly young bachelor 
uncle, who was an ardent fisherman and carried 
both the boys off with him for three weeks’ peel 
fishing in a remote village in North Wales. He 



42 


BOYS 


was also of a literary turn, that uncle, and took 
with him a box of books to enliven their evenings: 
lots of Kipling and Stevenson, and amongst the 
latter the ‘‘Life and Letters.” He read aloud the 
“Thomas Libby” incident, where Stevenson and 
certain kindred spirits roused a whole neighbor¬ 
hood to excitement by constant inquiries as to the 
whereabouts of one ‘ ‘ Thomas Libby, ’ ’ who existed 
only in his creator’s vivid imagination. That of 
the twins was immediately fired by an ambition to 
go and do likewise. 

The incident, or rather series of incidents, to 
which the non-appearance of Mr. Libby led up, en¬ 
chanted them. They chuckled over the mysterious 
Thomas for a whole day, but it was not till eve¬ 
ning, at bedtime, that Tod whispered to Peter how, 
like “Sentimental Tommy,” he had “found a 
way.” 

Sitting on the side of his bed, he announced glee¬ 
fully : ‘ ‘ Tell you what it is, Peter, we ’ll be a par¬ 
ent! A parent with a delicate kid! And we’ll 
write long-winded letters in scratchy, small hand¬ 
writing, you know, like the masters write ...” 

“But,” Peter interrupted excitedly, “how are 
we to get the answers? It wouldn’t be any fun if 
we didn’t.” 

“The answers,” Tod replied calmly, “will come 
to the post office here, where we’re living, you 
juggins! You bet there’ll be answers. They’re 
awfully keen after the oof at the good old school. 
Why, they scent a new boy a mile off. He shall go 
into old Pig-Face’s house, just to pay him out for 
all his beastliness to you, and I’ll pester the Head 



VAGAEIES OF TOD AND PETEE 43 


about him and bis delicate chest, and all that sort 
of rot that parents do write, don’t yon know.” 

Peter gasped. ‘‘Bnt how can he ‘go’ into any¬ 
body’s honse if there isn’t a him to go?” 

“What an ass yon are, Peter! Was there a 
Thomas Libby? And how many people’s honses 
was he going to, pray?” 

“Go on,” said Peter hnmbly, “go on.” 

“The parent’s name,” Tod annonnced prondly, 
“is Theopompns Bnggins.” 

“Theopompns!” Peter echoed dnbionsly. “It 
doesn’t sonnd very real somehow—and is the kid 
to be yonng Theopompns?” 

“No,” said Tod firmly, “Ms name is Archibald, 
and Mr. Bnggins is his nncle. ’ ’ 

“I thonght he was to be a parent,” Peter ob¬ 
jected in a dissatisfied voice. 

“Well, an nncle is a sort of parent; probably the 
kid’s an orphan.” 

There was silence for a minnte while Peter di¬ 
gested this view of the matter. Bnt still he was 
not qnite satisfied, for presently he said: “Tod, 
wonld you believe in anyone called ‘Theopompns 
Bnggins’?” 

“Well, no, I’m not snre that I wonld,” Tod 
admitted. “Why?” 

‘ ‘ D ’yon believe the Head will ? ’ ’ 

“I never thonght of that.” 

“I think,” Peter snggested begnilingly, “that 
we had better have a commoner name, don’t yon?” 

“P’r’aps we had,” Tod sighed. “Let’s have 
Jones—Theopompns Jones, now.” 

“Jones is all right,” Peter allowed gracionsly. 


44 BOYS 

‘‘but I don’t fancy Theopompus mucH, it’s such a 
peculiar name. ’ ’ 

“It’s a splendid name,” Tod exclaimed huffily, 
“but of course if you think it’s too uncommon he 
can be ‘T. Jones, Esq.,’ or ‘John Jones’ if you 
insist upon it. How would you like ‘Peter 
Jones’?” 

“T. Jones will do spiffingly,” Peter answered 
with some haste. ‘^We^ll know his name is Theo¬ 
pompus right enough, and it don’t matter a hang 
to them whether he’s Theobald or Theophilus or 
anything; but I say. Tod, must he be an uncle?” 

“Yes,” Tod replied firmly, “he jolly well must, 
and, what’s more, he’s got to be going to Injia 
just as term begins. We’ll look out the sailings 
in uncle’s paper and choose his ship. He’ll just 
get there in the hot weather, but that can’t be 
helped. ’ ’ 

The twins were well acquainted with the where¬ 
abouts of “sailings” in the papers, as most Anglo- 
Indian children are. 

“Why, you’ve planned it all. Tod,” Peter said 
admiringly. “How’ll you do about the writing?” 

“I shall write as like old Stinks as possible, that 
niggly, scrabbly sort of writing, you know.” 

“By Jove! So you can—that’ll be all right. 
Parents and people call that sort of writing 
‘scholarly,’ but if we did it they’d say we were 
beastly illiterate or something.” 

“What I like about a scholarly handwriting,” 
said Tod thoughtfully, “is that no mortal can tell 
whether the spelling’s right or not. When I’m 
once through the Shop I shall always write a 



VAGAEIES OF TOD AND PETER 45 


scholarly hand and not bother about spelling and 
that any more.” 

‘^Boys,” a voice called from the next room, 
‘‘you get to bed and don’t keep jawing all night.” 

• •••••• 

It would not he fair to disclose the exact spot in 
Wales from which that anxious relative, Mr. T. 
Jones, indited his first letter to the headmaster of 
the Public School which reckoned Tod and Peter 
among its pupils. 

‘ ‘ There are several L’s in the place where he dwells, 
And of W’s more than one. ’ ’ 

but it is impossible to be more explicit than this. 

The Principal of Harchester School was at 
breakfast in his hotel at the seaside when a letter 
marked “urgent” and “if away please forward 
immediately” reached him. He turned it over 
thoughtfully before opening it, for he thought he 
recognized the handwriting of one of his masters 
(familiarly referred to by Tod and Peter as “old 
Stinks”), a science master, much given to drawing 
his attention to various details by means of lengthy 
epistles. 

“What in the world can Neatby want now?” he 
wondered, “and in the holidays, too; it really is 
a little too bad!” 

On opening the letter, however, he found that it 
was not from Mr. Neatby, and set himself forth¬ 
with to decipher a missive in which the margins 
were clear and spacious as the writing was small 
and obscure. Yet it had the air, so the principal 


46 


BOYS 


remarked to himself, of being the letter of an edu¬ 
cated man. Tod had played the ‘ ‘ scholarly ’ ’ game 
with entire success. 

The letter was as follows: 

^‘Dear Sir, 

‘‘I am desirous that my only nephew, Archi¬ 
bald Jones, aged thirteen years and six months, 
should be enrolled among the pupils of your fa¬ 
mous seminary at the commencement of the sum¬ 
mer session. But before placing him under your 
benignant charge there are several points upon 
which I am desirous of enlightenment. Certain 
friends have recommended to me the house of one 
Mr. Mannock, but from other sources I have gath¬ 
ered that he is a man of somewhat violent temper, 
sometimes almost abusive, in his intercourse with 
the boys. Is this so? Because, if it is, I shall re¬ 
quire to seek some other house in which to place 
my nephew, an orphan of extremely sensitive dis¬ 
position, with a weak chest. It is possible that the 
accounts I have heard of Mr. Mannock ^s violence 
may be exaggerated, and I should like Archibald 
to enter his house unless you especially warn me 
against it. I wish my nephew to be entered upon 
the Classical side, as I am given to understand 
that boys are less overworked in that department 
than in that where they prepare for the Army. 
And as his delicate chest will prevent my nephew 
joining in the rougher sports of his contempora¬ 
ries, I would suggest that one of the younger 
masters should be told otf to take Archibald for a 
walk every fine day, as, of course, a certain amount 
of fresh air and exercise is essential. He must 
not be placed in too high a class, as owing to illness 


VAGARIES OF TOD AND PETER 47 


he has not been able to make snch rapid progress 
in his studies as his robuster contemporaries. 

‘‘Any information that you can afford me—and 
as early an answer as possible, for I am leaving 
England at the beginning of May and wish to see 
my dear nephew comfortably settled before I sail- 
will greatly oblige 

“Yours truly, 

“T. Jones.’’ 

Tod had written “yours turly,” but was cor¬ 
rected by Peter, who, if he had less sense of style, 
was fairly dependable where spelling was con¬ 
cerned. 

Now the postmistress, their landlady, found her 
household duties so much increased by the pres¬ 
ence of her lodgers that she was fain to depute her 
official cares to her daughter, Katie, a damsel who 
greatly admired the good-looking twins. And 
when they confided to her that if a letter came 
addressed to “T. Jones, Esq.” it really was for 
one of them, she asked no questions, required no 
further information, but, concluding that it was 
only a part of their mysterious charm to receive 
letters in a name other than their own, promised 
to guard the same should it come, without point¬ 
ing out to anybody that just then no person of the 
name of Jones was residing at the post office. 

The letter came in two days and ran as fol¬ 
lows: 

“Dear Sir, 

“I enclose the entrance form to be filled up by 
any parent or guardian desirous of placing a boy 



48 


BOYS 


at Harchester ScliooL With regard to the honse 
in which you wish your nephew to hoard, Mr. Man- 
nock’s is, as I hope are all our houses, entirely 
satisfactory. But if your nephew is, as you im¬ 
ply, a delicate boy, I would suggest that he should 
be placed in one of the smaller boarding-houses, 
as he would then receive more individual attention 
than it is possible to bestow in a house where there 
are some fifty boys. I have asked the bursar to 
send you a prospectus, in which you will find the 
names and addresses of all the masters in the 
school who take boys; and lest the house you select 
should be already full, I advise you to communi¬ 
cate with the master at your earliest convenience. ’ ’ 

When Mr. Theopompus Jones in the dual shape 
of Tod and Peter received this missive they retired 
to a distant bridge, whereon they sat to read it, 
and they laughed so much that they nearly fell over 
backward into the river. They gloated over the 
very envelope. But later on, when their first glee 
at getting an answer at all had somewhat abated, 
they expressed disappointment that the Head had 
omitted to answer so many of their questions. 

‘‘You see,’’ Peter cried indignantly, “what a 
shufflin’ old hypocrite he is. You can’t get a 
straight answer from him about old Pig-Face, and 
he knows what an old brute he is just as well as 
we do.” 

“Shall we send dear Archibald into one of the 
smaller houses?” Tod asked thoughtfully. 

“No,” Peter thundered. “He’s going to old 
Pig-Face, and to no one else. Who knows but he 
may save some decent chap from going there? 


VAGAEIES OF TOD AND PETER 49 


LeFs write again to the Pot, it’s sncH a lark, he 
answers so nice and qnick. Why, there’s over a 
fortnight more of the holidays; we can get a whole 
volnme of his oily old letters by that time. I’ve 
always wondered how hnmbngs like him manage 
to grease np to one’s people so, and for the life 
of me I can’t see why now.” 

That night the twins again engaged in literary 
labors, much to their nncle’s surprise, but he was 
an ardent bridge player, and, having found three 
like-minded anglers at the village inn, he was glad 
to leave his lively nephews so peacefully employed. 

‘‘Are you chaps writing a story?” he asked that 
evening as he departed to his bridge. 

“Yes,” “No,” the twins answered simultane¬ 
ously, then Tod answered with some decision: 
“No, Uncle Frank, we’re writing letters, business 
letters, that’s all.” 

“Dear me,” their uncle replied, much impressed, 
and, having a peace-loving and incurious disposi¬ 
tion, he asked no further questions and was soon 
contentedly playing a “no trumps” hand with con¬ 
spicuous success. 

A day or two later the headmaster of Harchester 
sighed gently as he found beside his plate at break¬ 
fast another bulky epistle from the anxious-minded 
Mr. T. Jones. This time that gentleman did not 
content himself with generalities; he made the 
most searching inquiries as to the disposition of 
the aforesaid Mr. Mannock. 

After thanking the headmaster of Harchester 
for his “polite letter” (the headmaster raised his 


50 BOYS 

eyebrows as he reached this phrase), Mr. Jones 
continued: 

‘‘I fear that I cannot fall in with your sug¬ 
gestion of a private boarding-house for my dear 
nephew. In the first place it is too expensive, and 
in the second place I wish him to go into Mr. Man- 
nock’s house if you can satisfy me that he is of the 
considerate and forbearing disposition that a man 
placed in his responsible position ought to be. I 
am pressed for time, as I sail on May 1st for 
Bombay, and an early answer will greatly oblige. 

Yours truly, 

‘‘T. Jones.” 

Tod and Peter had the very greatest fun in filling 
in the form of application. They had long ago de¬ 
cided that the youthful Archibald was to enter on 
the Classical side, that he was destined for the 
Church, that his father was ‘ ‘ deceased, ’ ’ but as to 
the late gentleman’s profession they squabbled. 
Peter wanted Army or Indian Civil; Tod was in 
favor of Navy or Church; when Peter suddenly 
recollected that there were ‘‘lists and things” in 
most of the recognized professions and that an 
“inquisitive old buffer like the Pot would be cer¬ 
tain to look him up.” 

Finally they decided that the deceased one had 
better be a “merchant.” Peter wanted to add 
“prince,” but Tod, the far-seeing, pointed out 
that such affluence would hardly coincide with an 
objection to one of the smaller boarding-houses 
on the score of expense. 

Finally they despatched their entrance form “to 


VAGAEIES OF TOD AND PETER 51 


the bursar,” elaborately filled up in the spholarly 
handwriting of Mr. Theopompus Jones, the ^hand¬ 
writing that so puzzled the Principal of Harchester 
by its haunting resemblance to that of one of his 
masters. 

Again the Pot was prompt and courteous, and 
by return the twins were gloating over another 
letter, which, however, again disappointed them 
by its brevity. 

f 

“Dear Sir (it ran), 

“As your time in this country is indeed getting 
short, I would advise you at once to confer per¬ 
sonally with Mr. Mannock as to whether he can 
find room for your nephew or not; for, in the event 
of his having no vacancy, you still may be enabled 
to place the boy in one of the other houses.” 

“Oh, the shuffler!” Peter shouted indignantly. 
“The quibbler! The sanctimonious humbug! He 
thinks he’s diddled Theopompus Jones, does he? 
He’ll find out his mistake before very long; it’ll be 
Theopompus Jones has diddled him, I wouldn’t 
trust that man with a bad halfpenny. He can’t 
answer a straight question, that’s what he can’t do 
—and yet to hear him talk ...” 

“I say,” interrupted Tod, “suppose they send 
in the bill, what’ll we do?” 

“You don’t propose we should pay it, do you, 
you young ass?” Peter returned scornfully. 
“They never send ’em in till just before term, 
sometimes not till after. Don’t you remember 
how the pater grumbled last autumn because it 


52 BOYS 

didn't come, and lie wanted everything settled up 
before he sailed?” 

‘‘So does Mr. Jones want it all settled before he 
sails,” Tod remarked gaily. “He ought to write 
to old Pig-Face to-night.” 

This the dual Mr. Jones did, and, as before, 
received an answer by return of post from Mr. 
Mannock, who, strange to say, had just one va¬ 
cancy, and expressed his willingness that Archi¬ 
bald Jones should fill that same. And Mr. T. Jones, 
refraining from further researches into the char¬ 
acter of Mr. Mannock, Avrote with his own schol¬ 
arly hand, or rather hands, a letter which an¬ 
nounced the pending arrival of Archibald. 

By this time the holidays were nearly over, and 
the twins began to be somewhat anxious as to the 
termination of Mr. Jones’ correspondence with 
the authorities at Harchester School. But their 
good genius did not desert them at the last mo¬ 
ment, for just the day before they left Wales, 
when they were at their wits’ end for a satisfac¬ 
tory ending to the episode, they came across the 
“List of Members” of their uncle’s club; and, 
idly turning over the leaves. Tod found that there 
were no fewer than thirteen members of the same 
surname as the anxious uncle of their creation and 
three of them had T” for their initial. Instantly 
Tod’s resource was stimulated, and he despatched 
three letters in the most scholarly of handwritings 
to his headmaster, to Mr. Mannock, and to the 
bursar respectively, announcing his immediate de¬ 
parture for London and requesting that all future 


VAGARIES OF TOD AND PETER 53 


communications might be addressed to him at the 
club in question. 

In his letter to Mr. Mannock, he informed him 
that Archibald would be sent one day earlier than 
that given for the return of the other boys, as he, 
Mr. Jones, would be so much occupied in arrange¬ 
ments for his voyage that he would be unable to 
give the boy the careful supervision his sensitive 
disposition and delicate health demanded. 

‘AVe shanT see their pompous old letters and 
bills and things,’’ sighed Peter, ^‘but it will liven 
up the Jones fraternity at uncle’s club—it’s a good 
thing he’s not going back to town just yet, or he 
might hear something—and Pig-Face will simply 
raise Cain when that precious Archibald mysteri¬ 
ously disappears. We’re sure to hear about that, 
anyway; two of his chaps are in my form, jolly 
decent chaps they are, too.” 

‘‘Mind you never ash anything about it,” said 
Tod warningly. “They might suspect something, 
and if we were ever found to have had any hand 
in this we’d be sacked, sure as a gun. We’ve had 
our fun and now we must jolly well keep it dark. 
By the time it’s all hnished I should say both the 
Head and old Pig-Face will have done their thou¬ 
sand lines apiece, shouldn’t you?” 

• •••••• 

“Curious thing that fellow never turning up, 
isn’t it?” one of the “decent chaps” in Mr. Man- 
nock’s house remarked to Peter, some three days 
after term had begun. “Pig-Face is in an aAvful 
stew about it—afraid the boy’s been murdered or 
something.” 



54 


BOYS 


‘‘What boy*? What d’you meanf’^ Peter asked 
innocently. “Who hasn’t come back?” 

“No one hasn’t come back; it’s a new chap 
hasn’t turned up at all. Both he and his people 
have mysteriously disappeared, vamoosed, van¬ 
ished! Awfully funny thing. There’s no end of 
a fuss.” 

“P’r’aps he changed his mind at the last min¬ 
ute,” Peter suggested. “P’r’aps he heard some¬ 
thing about old Pig-Face and funked it.” 

“I don’t know,” said the other. “Old Pig-Face 
looks awfully worried. Shouldn’t wonder if we 
had detectives down, and all sorts of games. ’ ’ 

Peter looked thoughtful for a minute, and then, 
to the astonishment of his friend, who was really 
impressed by the enigma, doubled up with uncon¬ 
trollable laughter. 

The assistance of Scotland Yard, however, was 
not called in; for, on writing to the Bishop and 
Admiral given as references by Mr. T. Joiies 
(boldly lifted, address and all, from “Who’s 
Who,” by the ingenious Tod), the headmaster of 
Harchester received an emphatic disclaimer from 
each of these gentlemen of any laiowledge of any 
such person. Moreover, an inquiry at the post 
office of the Welsh village from which Mr. Jones’ 
letters were dated only elicited the laconic response 
of “Gone away—address not known.” 

Katie had received and faithfully followed her 
instructions. 

Every Jones of the whole thirteen in that club 
was approached in vain, and inquiry at the ship¬ 
ping office only elicited the fact that, plentiful as 



VAGARIES OF TOD AND PETER 55 


persons bearing that patronymic appeared to be, 
no passenger of that name had sailed by that par¬ 
ticular boat. 

• The authorities at Harchester came to the un¬ 
welcome conclusion that they had been hoaxed; 
and all that remained of the incident were certain 
letters, treasured, on the one hand for purposes 
of possible identification, on the other for more 
frivolous reasons. 


‘‘TONY^' 


Tony sat in the gutter, wondering what would 
he the coolest thing to do. The front doors of all 
the houses in the dull, quite respectable street, 
wherein he dwelt, were close shut, as were also the 
white-curtained windows, lest dust should blow in 
and sully these hall-marks of houses that possess 
a front ^‘best room.’’ The neighboring children 
were all away; some at the recreation ground, 
some to paddle their feet in the nearest approach 
to a river the town boasted—a little muddy stream 
about a foot deep at the best of times; now a sort 
of pea soup. 

But on this August afternoon Tony felt too slack 
and too sticky to seek any amusement that neces¬ 
sitated a walk; so, having been thrust out of the 
back door by his mother, who was washing and 
wanted no boys ^‘clutterin’ round”—he strolled^ 
lanquidly to the front, quite sure that here, at any 
rate, he would be left in peace, as the dwellers in 
Eva Terrace never used their front doors except 
on Sundays. 

Just then a man carrying a bag came running 
down the road, which was a short cut to the station. 

“Here, youngster!” he shouted, throwing the 

56 


‘‘TONY’’ 57 

bag to Tony. “Carry this for me, and I’ll just do 
it! Rnn after me for all you’re worth!” 

Tony caught the bag dexterously and ran. He 
could run faster than the man, and was soon jog¬ 
ging on ahead of him. At the station Tony got 
sixpence for his pains, thrust it deep into his right 
trouser pocket, and walked soberly away. 

Infinite possibilities were opened up by this un¬ 
expected windfall, and he had no intention of men¬ 
tioning it at home. His people were poor, but not 
poorer than their neighbors; his brothers and sis¬ 
ters were all older than he, and in his case Ben¬ 
jamin’s lot was not accompanied by the advantages 
with which it is generally accredited. 

A lonely child was Tony, gentle and biddable 
enough, quick at his books, and happiest in his 
school hours, when people let him alone, and he 
succeeded in pleasing the clever, testy school¬ 
master, whose life was embittered by a constant 
struggle with an overwhelming desire to whack 
the young demons who tormented him. He had 
been “summonsed” twice by irate parents; so now 
he restrained himself at the expense of his teach¬ 
ing powers and his nerves generally. 

Tony stopped in the middle of the road and 
smacked his pocket. 

“I’ll go to the baths to-morrow morning,” he 
said aloud, “and see them young nobs swim; it’s 
only threepence before nine.” 

A great excitement—unshared, unmentioned— 
had lately come into Tony’s life. Every morning 
for the last week, about eight o’clock he had 
watched for two boys who went by on bicycles with 


58 


BOYS 


towels strapped on to their handle-bars. One was 
quite a little boy, far less than Tony himself; the 
other bigger, and in his eyes less interesting; and 
in a few minutes after them came one for whom 
Tony had conceived the extravagant, unreasoning 
admiration children will sometimes lavish on some¬ 
body with whom they have never exchanged, or 
hope to exchange, two words; someone unconscious 
of their existence as they are the richer for that 
other’s. 

Everybody in Tony’s locality knew the recruit¬ 
ing sergeant by sight: ‘‘Sergeant” who taught 
drill and gymnastics to all the “young gen’lemen” 
in the neighborhood. But Tony adored him, not 
only because he was so tall and good-looking— 
and Tony was strenuously certain that it is a 
goodly thing to be upstanding and to have broad 
shoulders, instead of the champagne-bottle variety 
carried by his brothers and their like—^but because 
he knew that the sergeant wished him well; inas¬ 
much as that he, even he also, was one of the hun¬ 
dred and fifty odd boys in the parish schools of 
St. James’s. For now that the war fever was 
somewhat abating, now that Sergeant himself had 
come back from the front that he might send more 
soldiers out there, he had offered to drill the boys 
in St. James’s schools twice a week for love. And 
it could not be arranged. 

The authorities, while granting the utility of 
algebra and French to those in the seventh stand¬ 
ard, who were presently to form the bulk and bul¬ 
wark of the nation, saw no good reason why an 
attempt should be made to give them straight 




59 


backs and broad chests. So Sergeant, who loved 
his country, and was, in his way, something of a 
philanthropist, sighed and swore, and ‘‘put the 
question by.’’ 

But Tony, who had heard the subject canvassed, 
and listened to the lamentations of the boys, was 
filled with a passion of gratitude, which found no 
expression save in a constant hanging round cor¬ 
ners to see his idol pass. 

• •••••• 

Tony sat on his bed naked, in a patch of moon¬ 
light, admiring his own legs. 

“My body be whiter nor theim,” he said to him¬ 
self, and indeed, his limbs looked radiantly fair 
in the mellow light. “But my arms beant so ’ard 
as ’is ’n for all ’e be such little chap, ’ ’ he continued, 
pinching the soft flesh of the upper arm in a dis¬ 
satisfied way. 

Tony was too excited to sleep just yet—such a 
great deal had happened in the last two days. In 
all his ten years he had never felt as he felt now— 
and yet, from an outsider’s point of view, what a 
little thing it was! 

The day before he had gone to the swimming 
bath, intending just to watch. It was empty, save 
for Sergeant and the two boys who went with him 
every morning. The water looked so clear, and 
there seemed so much room in the big bath, that 
Tony undressed and went in. 

He paddled shyly about in the shallow end, ad¬ 
miring the two boys, who dived otf the spring¬ 
board and the pulpit and swam under water, while 
Sergeant roared directions at them, and flung them 


60 


BOYS 


head over heels in the deep end, in a fashion that 
filled Tony with surprise. 

The big boy was practising side-stroke, when the 
little one, whom Sergeant, for some reason or 
other, called the ‘‘swashbuckler,’’ swam down the 
bath toward Tony, remarking cheerfully: 

“You’ll get rheumatism if you paddle so. Shall 
I show you the first exercise?” 

He was such a little boy, but he swam like a 
frog. His square, freckled face was so friendly 
that Tony forgot that he himself was an “oik,” 
and therefore his sworn foe, and said, “Please, 
sir!” in the meekest of tiny whispers. 

“You must kneel on the edge further down, and 
let me chuck you in,” was the next command— 
and Sergeant stopped in the very middle of a shout 
to chuckle and whisper: 

“Blest if the swashbuckler isn’t giving a swim¬ 
ming lesson on his own account!” 

And now Tony sat on the edge of his bed and 
remembered two wonderful mornings, and pon¬ 
dered what it could be that made that friendly 
little boy so different from all the other boys he 
knew. And through all his thinking, like the re¬ 
frain of a song, sounded a sentence he had once 
heard at Sunday school. He could not remember 
the whole of it; but five words seemed to batter 
at his brain as though demanding instant compre¬ 
hension and attention—“T7ie temple of your 
body/^ 

Tony nodded as though in answer to a spoken 
word. He pictured Sergeant cleaving the water 


‘‘TONY” 61 

with his long arms, the muscles standing out on 
his white shoulders. 

“I s^pose,” said Tony softly, as if in answer 
to that unseen, persistent voice, “some folks ’as 
temples for bodies, and some folks ’as on’y tin 
churches, or, so to speak, a public. ... I’d like 
a temple myself for ch’ice.” 

He was not very sure what a temple was, but in 
a vague way he tvas assured that it was something 
large and beautiful; and his conception was helped 
out by hazy recollections of Sunday school and 
Solomon, and thoughts of a building spacious and 
white. 

“There used to be a free night,” he continued, 
reverting again to the actual, “but the Corpeera- 
tion stopped it—I wonder w’y? It’s tuppence 
after six, that’s a shillin’ a week—’ow can pore 
boys get that?—an’ I promised ’im as I’d learn 
the others w’en I could get a chanst, when he’s 
learned me. ...” 

Tony’s voice faltered, he was getting sleepy. 
He gave his smooth white arms another stroke, 
slipped into his nightshirt, and got into bed. 

“E’ve give oi a shillin’ to pay for four more 
mornin’s, till ’e do go away,” he whispered ecs¬ 
tatically as he laid his head on the pillow, and 
Tony fell asleep. 

That evening Tony’s elder brother “Earny,” 
who cleaned bicycles, and was ’prenticed to a 
dealer in the neighborhood, wanted his Sunday 
necktie, for he purposed to “walk out with his 
young lady.” He ran upstairs to the room he 
shared with Tony and another brother, to find the 


62 


BOYS 


little boy fast asleep, worn out by unusual exer¬ 
cise and varied emotions. 

Eamy could not find his tie, and on lifting 
Tony’s trousers to see if by any chance it was 
bidden beneath them, a shilling rolled out of the 
pocket and finished spinning with a clang, just in 
the very centre of the patch of moonlight where 
a quarter of an hour earlier Tony had decided 
that he, at all events, ‘‘would ’ave a temple for 
ch ’ice. ’ ’ 

“ ’Ullo!” thought Eamy to himself, “where did 
that kid collar a bob? ’E bin a’ter no good. I’ll be 
boun’, so secret-like and sayin’ nothin’ to nobody. 
Serve ’im right if I buys some smokes with ’un;” 
and Earny departed quietly, without having ful¬ 
filled his original intention of waking Tony that 
he might look for the missing necktie. 

At nine o’clock the following morning Tony 
still lay upon his bed, wide-eyed, white-cheeked, 
with blank despair writ large upon his face. 
Breakfast was over long ago, his family had all 
departed to their daily work; his mother was 
ironing in the kitchen, he could hear the bump of 
the iron as she slammed it on the table; the bed¬ 
room could wait till one of the girls came in at 
dinner-time, so no one interfered with Tony. 

He knew that it was his brother who must have 
taken the shilling—^the precious shilling that had 
meant so much to him. He knew that he had no 
redress, no one would believe him if he told them 
how he came by it, and in his utter misery he was 
too poor-spirited even to think of reprisals. His 
whole imagination centred round the dreadful cer- 


‘‘TONY’’ 


63 


tainty that Sergeant and the little gen’leman and 
the little gen’leman’s brother wonld think him a 
fraud. For a brief space the sun had shone out 
on his drab life, discovering hitherto undreamt-of 
colors in the landscape, but now . . . 

“I can never watch for ’em no more,” he said, 
with a hard, tearless sob. 

Presently he stood out on the floor and shook his 
nightshirt about his feet; he dressed quickly, and 
did not even wash his face as he was wont to do. 

“ ’Tain’t no use for the likes of me to try,” he 
said bitterly. 

Then he went to his brother’s drawer and stole 
the bundle of cigarettes he found there, and went 
out and smoked under the railway bridge till his 
body was as sick as his heart. 


A SQUAEE PEG 


‘‘I told him plainly beforehand that if he did not 
get a scholarship this term he mnst go into busi¬ 
ness. He has not won a scholarship, and, situated 
as you are, any other course would be absurd. ’ ’ 
Uncle Henry shut his mouth with a snap, while 
he stared fixedly over his sister ^s head that he 
might not see the pleading in her eyes as she said 
timidly: 

‘‘But fourteen is so young, Henry, and Rodney 

is so small for his age-’’ 

“I fail to see that his size has anything to do 
with it; and you, Felicia, must learn to face things 
as they are, not as you would have them. If you 
defer for one moment the chance of Rodney’s 
making his own living, you are doing an injustice 
both to him and to his sisters. Pardon my plain 
speaking, but he is the son of an exceedingly poor 
widow and must be dealt with accordingly.” 

Through the open windows came t^ sound of a 
boy’s laughter and the ring of a smartly struck 
cricket ball. Uncle Henry waved his hand in the 
direction of the sound, saying: 

“There, you see; that’s what his education at 
present amounts to; he’s a pretty bat, and doubt- 

64 



65 


A CQUAKE PEG 

less looks forward to a li^e all flannels and cider- 
cnp and yells of admiration when he makes a few 
runs; the sooner all that nonsense is knocked out 
of him the hetterP’ 

‘‘But Kodney is not idle, Henry,’’ his mother 
pleaded; ‘‘his form-master and the Head both 
speak well of him and say that he has a very good 
chance next year, although he has missed this; you 
know the exam, came on just after his father’s 
death, when the boy was dreadfully upset.” 

“I have made you an offer, you may take it or 
leave it. You can put him into one of my busi¬ 
nesses; there will be no premium, and I’ll pay for 
his board at a thoroughly good boarding-house I 
know of in Mecklenburg Square, where he will be 
well looked after. In the meantime you must try 
to let this house, and then you can come up and 
live in the suburbs, and he can live with you and 
go to business every day by train; the little girls 
can go to a High School. With the many claims I 
have upon me, this is all that I can do, and I must 
serve you in the way that seems best to me.” 

Uncle Henry sat down and took up the news¬ 
paper in token that the subject was thoroughly 
threshed out. He had gone into business at four¬ 
teen, and now at little past thirty had a house in 
Grosvenor Gardens and a “place down the river.” 
He had married at six-and-twenty, ‘‘going where 
money was.” The names of his two sons were 
down for Harrow, while his wife already talked of 
the time when she should “present” their baby 
girl. He quite acknowledged that it was his duty 
to help his sister now that the collapse of those 


66 


BOYS 


Australian banks bad practically beggared her; 
but there was at the back of his mind a lurking 
satisfaction that the way he had chosen should be 
one calculated to destroy those castles of tradition 
her husband had been so fond of building. It 
was a perpetual annoyance both to his wife and to 
himself that Kodney and his sisters should be so 
very different in appearance from their own chil¬ 
dren; that, clean or dirty, these children without 
a sixpence should so strongly resemble the old 
family portraits that his brother-in-law’s ridicu¬ 
lous will forbade to be sold; that they should in 
speech and bearing so unmistakably be gentle¬ 
folk, and yet be his own sister’s children seemed 
to him a proof of nature’s ineptitude. 

To be sure he and Felcourt had been on friendly 
enough terms, but he had always—though through 
no fault of Felcourt’s—been conscious that his 
brother-in-law and his ancestors for generations 
belonged to a class which only of late, and that not 
altogether with enthusiasm, has opened its doors 
to successful men of Uncle Henry’s stamp. 

Rodney’s mother went and stood by the open 
window. The active white figures flying between 
the wickets on the wide lawn seemed all blurred 
and indistinct, and she lifted her slim hand to her 
throat to still its throbbing ache; she was not a 
strong-minded woman. All she had asked of life 
was the power to make folks happy, and to be 
loved; and hitherto her desire had been gener¬ 
ously fulfilled. Married at eighteen to a man who, 
taking her out of somewhat sordid and uncon¬ 
genial surroundings, made her queen of a house- 


67 


A SQUAEE PEG 

hold where gaiety and good manners had been 
vassals for generations, she readily adapted her¬ 
self to the new atmosphere, and became a sweet¬ 
voiced echo of her husband, and for fourteen years 
was absurdly happy. Then Rodney Felcourt died, 
and six months afterward came the collapse of the 
Australian banks. 

Uncle Henry had a way of carrying through any 
course of action he had determined upon, and by 
the beginning of October his nephew Rodney found 
himself taking his exercise in the Gray’s Inn 
Road instead of in the playing-fields at school. 
The change of life was so radical and so sudden 
that the child hardly understood what had hap¬ 
pened. Like the old woman in the nursery rhyme, 
he was forever exclaiming, ‘‘This be never I!” in 
melancholy astonishment. He was learning to tie 
up parcels, he stuck on endless quantities of post¬ 
age stamps, and occasionally addressed a few en¬ 
velopes for one of the typists. He did what he 
was told as well as he could, the day seemed end¬ 
lessly long, and by evening he was so tired that 
he went to bed soon after the seven-o’clock din¬ 
ner. A young boy for his age, he was quite unpre- 
cocious and unformed; hitherto his place in the 
universe had been clearly defined and not difficult 
to fill; to do well in his form, thus pleasing the 
“mater” and his form-master, to be “decent” to 
his little sisters at home, and “jolly” with the 
chaps at school, to be good at games and get 
into the “house” eleven, and to be absolutely 
“straight” in word, deed, and across country— 
such was Rodney’s conception of the whole duty 


68 


BOYS 


of boy, and he had acted np to it with consider¬ 
able success. Now, life was not only complicated 
but unintelligible, and he was too bewildered even 
to rebel against a fate that kept him tying up par¬ 
cels indifferently well when he felt that by all the 
ordinary standards of conduct he ought to have 
been writing Latin verses. 

Every Sunday he wrote neat, stilted little letters 
to his mother, which informed her that he had 
been to church at the Foundling, was going for a 
walk in the afternoon, that he was well and hoped 
that she was well, and that he was her very loving 
son. Felicia crushed the paper against her cheek 
in the vain attempt to extract from it something 
real and Eodney-like. She thought of the school 
letters last term, how full of life they had been, 
how numerous the requests they contained! Rod¬ 
ney never asked for anything now, and she knew 
that the boy was holding himself well in hand lest 
any part of the truth might hurt her. 

At the end of October, Cecil Connop came back 
from Paris. His arrival was announced in all the 
papers, for he was of some importance in literary 
circles; his great ability was acknowledged on all 
sides, the more freely that he was something of a 
failure. Though his work was widely read and 
appreciated by cultivated people, he was not popu¬ 
lar. His appearance was quite ordinary, and he 
made no attempt to resemble any historical per¬ 
sonage. He abhorred advertisement, considering 
that his published writings had no sort of con¬ 
nection with his private life. His readers were 
quite ignorant as to whether he had a mother or 


69 


A SQUAEE PEG 

not, and Ms personal friends suffered under no 
apprehension that their loves or their bereave¬ 
ments would figure, flimsily disguised, in his next 
book. His rooms in Jermyn Street had never been 
photographed, and only his servant knew whether 
he liked his bath hot or cold. The fact was that 
Cecil Connop kept one face for the world and 
quite another for the old friends who loved him— 
a proceeding so out of date among literary people 
as to be almost medieval. But it has its advan¬ 
tages for such as like curtains to their windows. 
According to his own account he never had any 
money, and was, when in England, in hourly dan¬ 
ger of Holloway Jail; but he paid his card debts 
and never seemed to lack any of the things that 
go toward maldng life pleasant. 

Felicia ^s letter announcing little Kodney^s ap¬ 
prenticeship was a great surprise to Cecil. He 
had, of course, heard of her serious losses, but he 
knew that her brother was a wealthy man and 
people always manage somehow’’; that in this 
case they hadn’t ‘^managed” came upon him with 
quite an unpleasant shock. 

For some reason which she would not define 
even to herself, Felicia had not asked any of her 
friends then in town to look up Rodney. She was 
absolutely certain in her own mind that he had 
no business there, but circumstances were too 
strong for her, and she dared not offend Henry. 
When she read in the paper that Cecil had returned 
to town she felt distinctly relieved. Here was an 
understanding person who would ask no questions 


70 BOYS 

and could be depended upon to give a faithful ac¬ 
count of the child. 

Cecil wrote at once to Kodney asking him to 
lunch at his club on the following Saturday, and 
to Felicia, to say how pleased he would be to do 
what he could for him while he was in town. 

Eodney sat on the edge of his bed, too tired to 
undress. His flannels and ‘‘sweater’’ were spread 
on the pillow, and from time to time the boy laid 
his face down on them, inhaling the clean, woolly 
smell. He had of course never worn them since 
he came to London—^Uncle Henry had not thought 
it necessary to make any arrangement as to how 
Kodney should spend his Saturdays—yet the sight 
of them comforted him. He was beginning to 
employ that saddest of all philosophies, that noth¬ 
ing can take from us the good times we have had. 
He had eaten hardly anything all day, and the 
ache in his throat was well nigh intolerable. His 
door opened, and the maid announced: “A gen¬ 
tleman to see you, sir. Said he’d come up here. ’ ’ 

Cecil had come before his letter. As the open 
door betrayed the listless little figure with the 
scattered flannels the whole situation was re¬ 
vealed to him in a flash, and for the hundredth 
time in a not over well-spent life he cursed the 
folly which had rendered him so incapable of help¬ 
ing his friends in any material way. When Rod¬ 
ney realized who was his visitor, he simply flung 
himself bodily upon him, and Cecil Connop, who 
was tender-hearted and easily touched, kissed him 
and had been rapturously kissed in return before 
he had time to consider whether the boy would be 


71 


A SQUAEE PEG 

offended or not. Then they both sat on the bed 
and for the first time for six weeks Rodney chat¬ 
tered. One of the boarders, a girl who did type¬ 
writing in Chancery Lane, passing his doorway, 
stopped and smiled as she heard the ripple of 
Rodney’s langhter; she waited for a full minnte, 
enjoying the unwonted sound, then passed on to 
her own room unaccountably cheered. People in 
that house were too busy and too tired to laugh! 

When Cecil Connop got back to his rooms he 
sat and smoked for a long time before he wrote 
the following letter to Felicia Felcourt: 

“To-night I have spent an hour with Rodney, 
and find him apparently well and cheerful. I can¬ 
not faithfully report upon his appearance, as it 
was candle-light and I did not see him very dis¬ 
tinctly. He talked freely enough about you all at 
home, about his old school, about myself; but, 
when I come to think of it, said nothing about his 
business. You will, I know, pardon me if I ask 
you in all seriousness—is this necessary? The 
whole time I was with him I had a curious sense 
that he was playing truant and ought to be at 
school; and there is one thing that an expression 
in your letter impels me to say at the risk of being 
impertinent: no amount of money in the world is 
such a possesssion as the breeding you and his 
dead father have given your boy. Forgive this 
frankness and believe me that I feel with you the 
more keenly that I am so conscious of my own 
gross impotence to help.” 

On Saturdays Rodney left business at one, and 
on this particular Saturday flew back to “Meek” 


72 


BOYS 


to change into his ‘‘Etons/’ when he hied him on 
the top of an omnibns to lunch with Cecil Connop 
at his club. When he was seated opposite to his 
host, that gentleman proceeded to examine him 
critically. The boy was unmistakably a gentle¬ 
man: everything about him, from the long slen¬ 
der hands of which he was so unconscious, to the 
way he looked his companion straight in the eyes, 
proclaimed him to come of a race who had spent 
their days otherwise than in tying up parcels. 
Men passing in and out looked pleasantly at the 
pretty boy who was so plainly enjoying the un¬ 
wonted experience; but Cecil noted that he was 
very thin, that after the first flush of greeting was 
past the little high-bred face was pale, and that 
there were black shadows under the long-lashed 
grey eyes. Moreover, although there was every¬ 
thing for lunch calculated to please a boy, he ate 
hardly anything. 

‘^Are they decent to you at your place of busi¬ 
ness?’’ asked Cecil, carefully pouring cognac into 
his coffee. 

‘Wou see,” said Rodney slowly, “I don’t seem 
to know anybody ...” Then, with a twinkle of 
amusement, ‘‘They call me a fool when I make 
iliistakes, which is pretty often, and if I do things 
right nobody says anything.” 

During the next week or two Cecil made a point 
of seeing Rodney from time to time, and after each 
meeting he felt more and more convinced that the 
boy’s health was failing. He did not complain, 
but the sedentary life was beginning to tell upon 
a constitution that had never been so tried. He 


73 


A SQUAEE PEG 

began to stoop, and even with Cecil his langh was 
by no means so ready or so frequent as it had 
been. 

Felicia, although at first much comforted by 
CeciPs account of Rodney, longed after him as 
only widowed woman can long for her son; but 
she had promised her brother that she would not 
attempt to see the boy for three months lest it 
should unsettle him, and it only wanted three 
weeks of the stipulated time. 

Rodney had not seen Cecil for a fortnight; he • 
was out of town, but this Rodney did not know. 

It was Saturday, and a smell of onion curry per¬ 
vaded the boarding-house, the Square garden 
looked hopelessly uninviting, and he felt that he 
could endure neither the one nor the other a mo¬ 
ment longer. So he hied him to Pall Mall to see 
if he could catch a glimpse of his friend. A con¬ 
spicuously forlorn little figure, he strolled slowly 
past the many clubs, when a man coming hastily 
down some steps stared hard at Rodney, and, fix¬ 
ing his eyeglasses more firmly on his nose, turned 
and walked swiftly after him. 

‘‘Felcourt! Felcourt! What are you doing 
here!’^ asked a sharp, nervous voice, and Rodney 
started violently as his house-master, ‘‘Fire¬ 
works Fenton,’’ caught him by the shoulder and 
shook him. 

• •••••• 

“You young ass! Why didn’t you write and 
tell me all about it?” said “Fireworks Fenton” 
an hour later, as he angrily thumped a tea-table in 
“Stewart’s” till the cups jumped off their sauc- 


74 


BOYS 


ers. ‘‘We all thonglit you^d gone to another 
school, and here have yon missed a whole term, 
and lost flesh and muscle, and forgotten every¬ 
thing you ever knew. IVe no patience with you; 
it^s preposterous, and must he put an end to at 
once! Give me your uncle’s address and your 

mother’s-” and “Fireworks” glared at Eod- 

ney through his eyeglasses, and Kodney sat swal¬ 
lowing uncomfortable things in his throat, while 
his heart felt lighter than it had been for many 
a long week. It was so good to be bullied in that 
particular fashion once more. Now he dared to 
look forward. He didn’t in the least know how it 
was to be managed, but his old master had told 
him he was to come back to school next term, and 
he always got his own way even with the Head 
himself. “Fireworks” was not afraid of twenty 
Uncle Henries—“Worthy but mistaken, worthy 
but mistaken,” he had muttered more than once 
during his late pupil’s explanations. Kodney 
went with him to Paddington to see him oiff, and 
it was only as the train steamed out of the station 
that “Fireworks Fenton” recollected that he had 
omitted the special business he had come up to 
town to do. But he only frowned and muttered: 
“That ridiculous little Felcourt put it out of my 
head, but I’m glad I found him—glad I found him. 
What fools these dear women are! What fools! 
What fools! ” and whenever he turned over a sheet 
of newspaper (of which he didn’t read a line), he 
frowned again, exclaiming: “What fools!” 

The particular fool Mr. Fenton had in his mind 
found two letters beside her plate on the following 



75 


A SQUARE PEG 

Tuesday morning. She knew both the handwrit¬ 
ings, and gave a little sigh as she opened that from 
Rodney’s house-master: it would be to ask how 
Rodney was getting on: he had always been fond 
of the boy, and she had told him nothing. 

‘‘You will, I hope, acquit me of frivolous inter¬ 
ference,” ran the letter, “in matters that do not 
concern me, when I tell you that I have seen Rod¬ 
ney and heard from him of the very great change 
it has been necessary to make in his life. I greatly 
wish that I had known sooner your reasons for 
taking him away from school, as I think one of the 
chief obstacles could have been, and still can be, 
easily removed. Dear Mrs. Felcourt, it is with 
considerable diffidence that I venture to ask you 
to do me a great favor, namely, to allow me to 
undertake Rodney’s education; my one stipulation 
being that he should come back to my house. You 
know that where there are twenty to thirty boys, 
one more or less makes but little difference, and 
in becoming responsible for the school fees, I am 
doing no more than my head-master did for me. 
My mother was left a widow with five children 
and very little of this world’s gear. I am fully 
aware how much I shall be the gainer if you allow 
me to have Rodney, for, young as he is, he had a 
distinct influence upon that mysterious and fluctu¬ 
ating commodity, the ‘tone of the house,’ and I 
have not the slightest doubt that he will be able 
to make his own way by aid of scholarships, ulti¬ 
mately earning his own living nearly as soon as if 
he had remained in business. 

“Forgive me where I have expressed myself 
clumsily, and believe me, 

“Faithfully yours, 

“Reginald Fenton.” 


76 


BOYS 


It was a long time before Felicia took up the 
other letter, which was from Cecil Connop, and of 
this one sentence stood out in letters of fire to the 
exclusion of everything else: 

‘‘I don^t believe the boy’s health will stand it, 
Felicia; come and see for yourself.” 

Felicia packed her smallest box and went. 

When Rodney came back from business that 
evening Selina, the parlormaid, informed him that 
a lady was waiting in the drawing-room to see 
him. Selina, usually so grim, was all ‘^nods and 
becks and wreathed smiles”; she liked Rodney, 
though he did ‘Hhrow about his clothes something 
shameful. ’ ’ 

He was very tired and his head ached, as it al¬ 
ways did in the evening lately, but something in 
the maid’s tone made him forget his weariness, 
and he raced up the stairs certain that only one 
lady could have produced such unwonted geniality 
on Selina’s part. But he paused on the mat out¬ 
side the door; suppose it should only be his aunt! 
She had never come yet, but she might, and how 
was Selina to know that he did not care particu¬ 
larly for his aunt? 

The door opened suddenly from the inside. 

hnew nobody else would come upstairs like 
that. What were you waiting for, you dear 
goose?”—and Rodney’s mother inspected her boy 
for herself. 

Next day she went to see her brother at his 
office, and told him that she had decided to accept 
Mr. Fenton’s oifer. She rather surprised Uncle 
Henry, she was so decided and so cool; he did not 


77 


A SQUAEE PEG 

know that Cecil Connop had got np two honrs 
earlier than nsnal, in order to have plenty of time 
to fortify Felicia for the interview, only leaving 
her at the office door. 

‘‘Do yon think he will refnse to have anything 
more to do with usV’ she had asked timidly. 

“He conldn’t be so ahsnrdly nnjnst,^’ answered 
Cecil stoutly; “but, even if he were, yon have 
Eodney to think of. It is a chance in a thousand; 
it would be worse than madness to throw it away. 
He’s a square little peg, is Eodney; you’ll never 
tit him into that hole.” 

Uncle Henry gave in quite graciously, though 
he was not best pleased. Had he hut known it, he 
revenged himself upon Mr. Fenton for his inter¬ 
ference by writing him a solemn letter of thanks, 
in which he spoke of his “generous, nay munifi¬ 
cent offer.” “Fireworks Fenton,” very red and 
uncomfortable, rolled the letter into a ball and 
dropped it into his waste-paper basket, exclaiming: 

“Pompous idiot!” 

When Eodney went home his little sisters found 
him more delightful than ever, hut he was reti¬ 
cent as regarded his experiences in London, de¬ 
scribing it briefly as “a beastly hole.” 

On his return to school “Fireworks Fenton” 
sent for him the very first evening. 

“A row already, Felcourt!” exclaimed his best 
friend in dismay. 

But Eodney ran along the passage and knocked 
at the study door without any fears on that score. 
As he closed the door behind him it was the master 
who looked embarrassed, as he jerked out: 


78 


BOYS 


“I’m pleased to see you back, Felcourt. Re¬ 
member that if you are in any way perplexed, or 
get into trouble ... or ... do you want any 
pocket-money, by the way?” and “Fireworks” 
bent anew over the letter he was writing. 

“No, sir, I have the usual pocket-money, thank 
you; but please I would like to-” 

“Now, Felcourt, don’t you see that I’m busy? 
Go away, go away!” 

“But please, sir-” 

“I know perfectly well all the absurd and ridicu¬ 
lous things you would say, and I very much pre¬ 
fer that you should not say them. One thing 1 
have to say, attend to your English prose! I have 
a distinct recollection that your spelling of Eng¬ 
lish is revolting—positively revolting. Attend 
to it I” 




A TWENTIETH-CENTURY MISOGYNIST 


What a place to be in is an old library! It seems as 
though all the souls of all the writers that have be¬ 
queathed their labors to these Bodleians were reposing 
here, as in some dormitory, or middle state. I do not 
want to handle or profane the leaves, their winding sheets. 
I could as soon dislodge a shade. I seem to inhale learn¬ 
ing walking amid their foliage; and the odor of their old 
moth-scented coverings is fragrant as the first bloom of 
those sciential apples which grew amid the happy or¬ 
chard.— Charles Lamb. 


I 

Every Easter holidays the schoolmaster went 
back to Oxford. Head of a flourishing preparatory 
school in the north, a bachelor, absorbed in his 
boys, strenuous, matter-of-fact, he yet retained 
after some twenty years of monotonous grind a 
romantic affection for the dear city of his youth¬ 
ful dreams. 

He always put up at the King’s Arms, that an¬ 
cient hostel with the undulating floors, where the 
ale is brown and strong, and the cold beef tender 
and streaky. On his very first day he hied him 
to a solitude he loved, paid his modest threepence, 
and mounted to a favorite haunt of his—the pic¬ 
ture gallery of the Bodleian Library. 

79 


80 


BOYS 


It was always empty; it almost always is empty. 
Undergraduates know it not; artistic and intellec¬ 
tual residents appear to scorn its prosaic por¬ 
traits of bygone poets and college benefactors, its 
humble curiosities. Visitors seldom trouble them¬ 
selves to mount the few extra steps leading to it 
from the world-famed library below. But the 
schoolmaster loved to wander up and down the 
second gallery. He loved the double archway with 
the tfaceried roof, where the statue of William, 
Earl of Pembroke, stands in the centre, and the 
two wide bay windows are filled with pale stained 
glass, and one has a deep, comfortable seat. 

As usual, the gallery seemed deserted, and the 
schoolmaster let the peace of its solitude slide into 
his soul, till his spirit was compassed about with a 
great calm. He strolled slowly through the gal¬ 
lery, his hands, holding his straw hat, clasped be¬ 
hind him. He always uncovered the instant he 
entered the little modest door in the corner of the 
great quadrangle that leads to so many wonders. 
Presently he reached the archway where he was 
wont to sit and dream. 

With a start of surprise he discovered that it 
was already tenanted. 

Under the portraits of Ben Jonson and Joseph 
Trapp, curled up in a corner of the deep window- 
seat, his muddy boots reposing on the sacred oak, 
was a boy—a small, thin boy in Norfolk jacket and 
knickerbockers, apparently about twelve years old, 
who read absorbedly a popular illustrated maga¬ 
zine. He never looked up as the schoolmaster ap¬ 
proached. Apparently he neither heard his foot- 


TWENTIETH-CENTURY MISOGYNIST 81 


step nor realized that the newcomer Had pansed 
to stare at him in speechless astonishment. 

Amazement, accompanied by extreme annoy¬ 
ance, was the schoolmaster's predominant emo¬ 
tion. There seemed to him something incongru¬ 
ous to the verge of irreverence in anyone daring 
to read a modem magazine under the very roof of 
the building that contained so much of venerable 
scholarship. 

It is tme that the boy was perfectly quiet. Be¬ 
yond the turning of his page, he made no sound 
of any sort, and the schoolmaster found himself 
watching this reader with a sort of dreadful fasci¬ 
nation. He longed that the child should reach the 
bottom of his page and look up. He even gave a 
little cough to attract his attention. But the boy 
seemed absolutely unconscious of either the 
stranger’s presence or his scrutiny, and read on 
unmoved, smiling occasionally at what he read. 

The schoolmaster fussed to the end of the gal¬ 
lery, pausing at every window to look out over 
the roofs at the towers and spires of Oxford. Then 
he fussed back again along the other side, where 
the view consists of the grey-walled quadrangle, a 
veritable haunt of ancient peace.” The peace 
that had enveloped him on his first entry spread 
her wings and fled. Irritation and curiosity had 
taken her place, and as he reached the archway 
again he stopped and looked at the motionless 
little figure in the mndow. 

The boy was no longer reading. 

The magazine lay on the window-seat beside 
him. His knees were drawn up to his chin, his 


82 


BOYS 


arms clasped about them, and he stared nnblink- 
ingly at the portrait of Abraham Cowley on the 
wall that faced him. 

The schoolmaster walked ronnd the statne of 
William of Pembroke till he, too, faced the boy. 
This time the child certainly glanced in his direc¬ 
tion, bnt the glance was of the most cursory order, 
and wholly without interest. In an instant he had 
returned to his grave contemplation of the poet, 
and the schoolmaster might himself have been the 
statue of William of Pembroke for any interest 
' he excited. 

The boy was pale and thin-faced, with large, 
hollow eyes and a tall, wide forehead—a scholar’s 
forehead, as the schoolmaster, accustomed for 
years to the observation of boys, had already 
noted. But what latent scholarship was displayed 
in the reading of that obnoxious magazine? And 
what business, the schoolmaster asked himself 
angrily, had a boy of that age to be boxed up in¬ 
doors on a fine afternoon in the Easter holidays? 

The schoolmaster was a conscientious man in 
the pursuit of his calling. From the very first he 
had taught himself to look upon boys as individu¬ 
als. He loved them; he whole-heartedly wished 
them well. They were to him of most absorbing 
interest; but he liked to get away from them some¬ 
times, and nowhere had he been able to pass so 
completely from his ordinary life of a hundred 
petty duties and anxieties as in the high solitude 
of that deserted gallery, set in the very centre of 
the scenes he held most dear, now spoilt and dese¬ 
crated by this young interloper with his horrid 


TWENTIETH-CENTURY MISOGYNIST 83 


modern magazine. Why on earth did he choose 
to come here? 

The schoolmaster conld bear it no longer. 
‘‘Boy,’’ he exclaimed, “why do yon come and read 
here?” 

Slowly the boy turned his melancholy eyes upon 
his questioner. “Because,” he answered, civilly 
enough, hut without any enthusiasm, “it is gen¬ 
erally perfectly quiet here. ’ ’ 

There was the faintest perceptible emphasis on 
the “generally,” not so much impertinent as 
gently reproving. Having answered, he turned 
his eyes again upon the chubby, smiling counten¬ 
ance of Abraham Cowley, and silence fell upon 
them like a pall. 

The schoolmaster was baffled, hut more curious 
than ever. He was quite conscious of the implied 
reproach in the “generally,” and he noted the ab¬ 
sence of the courteous “sir” with which any prop¬ 
erly constituted hoy would conclude a remark 
made to an elder. But he could not feel that the 
boy had been willfully rude. He would try again. 
“May I ask,” he said pleasantly, “why you are 
so fond of looking at the portrait of Abraham 
Cowley?” 

Again the boy shifted his gaze from the smug 
charms of the poet to the worn and somewhat 
homely features of his questioner. 

“I like him cos he’s so good-tempered—in this 
one,” was the brief reply. 

The schoolmaster came and stood beside the 
boy, and looked at the portrait. Above it was an- 


84 


BOYS 


other, also by Kneller, but representing him as 
thin and severe-looking. 

‘‘They’re very different, aren’t they?” the 
schoolmaster remarked. “You’d hardly think 
they were the same man, would you?” 

“I expect,” the boy said solemnly, “in the top 
one he’s been married.” 

This startling supposition fairly took away the 
schoolmaster’s breath. He racked his brains to 
remember all he had ever heard or read of Abra¬ 
ham Cowley, and couldn’t for the life of him recol¬ 
lect whether he was married or not. It is not in 
the nature of a true schoolmaster to leave a youth¬ 
ful mind in the darkness of ignorance if he can 
be the bearer of a torch whose light may pierce 
that gloom, so he said: “I expect it was his politi¬ 
cal troubles that caused so marked a change in his 
appearance. Ho you know anything about him?” 

“No, but I like him.” 

“Shall I tell you about him?” 

“No, thank you,” the boy answered politely, 
but with firm finality. 

He took up his magazine again, opened it, spread 
it upon his knees, and in one instant was absorbed 
in its pages. 

The schoolmaster sat down on the window-seat 
and gazed alternately at the boy and at the por¬ 
traits of Ben Jonson and Joseph Trapp above his 
head. Since he had been a little boy himself he 
had never felt so snubbed. He was wholly unac¬ 
customed to be a cypher in the eyes of boys, and 
suddenly with devastating force there was flung 
upon him the conviction that he never saw a real 


TWENTIETH-CENTUKY MISOGYNIST 85 


boy at all—that the boys he saw were all care¬ 
fully expurgated editions arranged to suit his sen¬ 
sibilities. 

A wild spirit of enterprise seduced the school¬ 
master. He felt himself as one who after long 
sailing in smooth, familiar waters suddenly sights 
an unknown and precipitous shore. 

He had come to Oxford to get away from the 
boys he thought he knew. What if, at Oxford, he 
received real enlightenment with regard to a boy 
he did not know? The sunshine faded and the 
gallery grew dark. Outside, he heard the soft 
patter of a heavy April shower. 

‘‘You ought not to read in this light,he said 
suddenly, “you will hurt your eyes.’’ 

The boy looked up surprised at this fresK in¬ 
terruption, but he obediently closed his book: 
there is something almost irresistible in the com¬ 
mands of those accustomed to exert authority. 

“Do you come here often?” asked the school¬ 
master. ' 

“Yes, whenever I’ve got threepence to get in.” 

“Has no one ever told you that when you are 
talking to an older man it is considered polite to 
say ‘sir’?” 

“No. I don’t know many old men, nor men at 
all, for the matter of that.” 

“Why, Oxford is full of men.” 

‘ ‘ That may be. I don’t know ’em. I only wish 
I did.” 

The boy spoke bitterly and his eyes were full 
of gloom. 


86 BOYS 

‘‘Don’t yon go to school?” this “older man” 
asked anxiously. 

“No, I’m too delicate, so they say.” 

“Who teaches yon, then?” 

“A gnv’ness. I say, do yon think we ought to 
talk here?” 

“I see no reason why not. This isn’t the li¬ 
brary, there is no notice enforcing silence.” 

The boy looked as if he wished there was. He 
sat perfectly mnte, with his eyes fixed on the 
placid portrait over the schoolmaster’s head. 

“Wouldn’t yon like to come downstairs with 
me and see some of the curiosities in the library?” 
the schoolmaster suggested begnilingly. 

“No, thank yon.” 

Eeally it was most difficult to make any head¬ 
way with this boy. But the schoolmaster pos¬ 
sessed to the full the necessary perseverance of 
his craft, so he continued his catechism: 

“Do your parents live in Oxford?” 

“I haven’t got any parents, they’re dead.” 

“Dear me, how sad! With whom do you live, 
then ? ’ ’ 

“Aunts.” 

Written words can in no wise express the snap¬ 
piness with which the boy ejaculated this mono¬ 
syllable. The schoolmaster felt unaccountably 
chilled and worsted, and silence fell upon them 
once more. 

The black cloud had passed over the Bodleian, 
the rain ceased, and the sun shone out again. The 
boy swung his feet offi the window-seat, put on 
his cap and picked up his magazine, and without 


TWENTIETH-CENTURY MISOGYNIST 87 


a word of farewell, strolled nonchalantly ont of 
the gallery, leaving the schoolmaster to exclaim 
when he had finally vanished, ‘‘Well, of all the 
curmudgeony hoys it has ever been my lot to 
meet, there goes the most curmudgeony!’^ 

II 

Yet he found it difficult to dismiss the ungracious 
youngster from his thoughts. Next afternoon he 
sought the gallery again, but there was no little 
figure curled up in the deep window-seat. The 
poet Cowley smiled serenely, the gallery was de¬ 
serted, dignified, reposeful as of yore: with all 
its mellow charm of faded coloring, that even the 
luminous stillness of that April afternoon could 
not burnish into real brightness. But the usual 
sense of pleasant well-being, and ordered peace, 
failed to enwrap the soul of the schoolmaster. 
Even as the day before he had found the presence 
of the reading figure in the window irritating and 
incongruous, so to-day he found its absence singu¬ 
larly disturbing. He walked once round the gal¬ 
lery, sat a few minutes looking at the portrait of 
Cowley and wondering what mysterious charm it 
held for the queer child who loved it, and so into 
the dear familiar irregular streets, where he 
scanned every boy who passed, in the hope of com¬ 
ing across his small acquaintance of the day be¬ 
fore. He went every day to the gallery, but no 
boy was there. He almost gave up hope of ever 
seeing him again, but he did not forget; and when, 
eight days after their first meeting, he mounted 


88 


BOYS 


to the gallery and saw the little figure crouched 
in the window as before, with a gaily covered 
magazine open on his knees, the schoolmaster's 
heart beat a little faster, and he hurried forward, 
exclaiming: ‘‘Where have yon been all these 
days f ’ ’ 

The boy started at his greeting, looked up, and 
a smile of recognition changed his face so abso¬ 
lutely that the schoolmaster felt a queer tighten¬ 
ing in the muscles of his throat. 

“I don’t get my pocket-money till a Friday,” 
the boy explained. “I couldn’t come before.” 

“Well, now you are here, let’s have a chat to¬ 
gether,” the schoolmaster said genially. “We 
both like this place, let’s tell each other the rea¬ 
sons why, and see if they’re the same.” 

He sat down beside the boy, just out of reach 
of the muddy boots. The boy, his magazine still 
held open on his knees, surveyed his neighbor with 
dark, mournful eyes. Now that the smile had 
ceased to lighten his face, the schoolmaster was 
shocked at the sharpness of the thin cheekbones, 
the hollows and the blue shadows under the solemn 
eyes. 

“I can’t tell you why I like it,” said the boy, 
“ ’cept p’r’aps because it’s so quiet, no one ever 
talks here, and there’s no women.” 

“But women can come here if they like,” the 
schoolmaster objected. 

“They never do like, not when I’m here,” the 
boy exclaimed eagerly. “I’ve been here every 
week for months and months and I’ve never seen 
one.” 


TWENTIETH-CENTURY MISOGYNIST 89 


‘‘But why do you object to womenthe school¬ 
master persisted. “We should he in a poor case 
without them, most of us.’’ 

“7 don’t object to them,” the hoy said wearily; 
“it’s them objects to us, and they do talk so—talk 
and talk and talk about their sufferings.” 

“Sufferings?” the schoolmaster repeated. 

‘‘You know,” said the boy impatiently, 
“women’s sufferings and votes and things, and 
Parliament and injustice and that.” 

“Suffrage, suffrage, you mean suffrage!” cried 
the schoolmaster. 

“It’s all the same, that’s what they talk about, 
and inferiority and that. One can’t help being 
born a boy, can one?” 

“Help it!” exclaimed the schoolmaster. “Why, 
who’d be born anything else if they had their 
choice ? ’ ’ 

The boy’s pale cheeks flushed. “Do you really 
mean that?” he asked eagerly. 

“Of course I do. It’s a glorious thing to be a 
boy who’s going to be a man.” 

“They don’t think so, they say it’s much better 
to be a girl; they’re sorry I’m a boy.” 

“Oh, come,” the schoolmaster said chafifingly. 
“You can’t expect me to believe that. They may 
say so in a kind of joke, but they don’t really 
mean it. ’ ’ 

“Do you know my aunts?” 

“Well, no; but I expect they are very like other 
ladies, who often say what they don’t mean.” 

The boy gave one scornful glance in the direc- 


90 


BOYS 


tion of the schoolmaster, lowered his eyes to the 
printed page, and was instantly absorbed. 

The schoolmaster felt that he was dismissed. 
He had been weighed in the balance, and found 
wanting in sympathy and insight, a mere stupid 
looker-on at the outside of things. Five minutes 
ago the boy had welcomed him. Now, it was as 
though the child had risen with the royal preroga¬ 
tive, and closed the interview. The schoolmaster 
sighed deeply. 

The boy looked up. His eyes were the color 
of a still pool in a Devonshire trout-stream, brown, 
with olive-green shadows, suggesting depths un¬ 
fathomable. The schoolmaster instantly seized 
upon the small concession, exclaiming: came 

here every day in the hope of seeing you again, 
and now that you are here, you sit and read. 
DonT you think it’s rather unkind?” 

The boy flushed hotly, and once more the trans¬ 
forming smile illumined his face as he said: ‘‘You 
came here on purpose to see me? Why?” 

“Well, you see, I’ve known a good many boys 
in my time, and I thought you seemed a bit 
lonely ...” 

The hungry eyes devoured him, and the school¬ 
master stopped in the middle of his sentence, for, 
like all Englishmen, he dreaded any manifestation 
of feeling, and the boy looked as if he were about 
to cry. His fears were groundless, however, for 
the child only said: “How many boys have you 
known ? ’ ’ 

“Bather over a thousand, I fancy. You see, it 


TWENTIETH-CENTUEY MISOGYNIST 91 


has been my business to have to do with boys for 
over twenty years. ’ ’ 

‘‘Over a thousand boys—and I donT know one! 
How unfair things are, and beastly.^’ 

The boy looked enviously at the grizzled man 
who had known so many boys; and the man looked 
pityingly at this boy who seemed to have been 
somehow cheated of all that makes youth joyous. 

“How is it you have no friends of your own 
age?” he said presently. “Why donT you beg 
your aunts to send you to school? You’d prob¬ 
ably get stronger directly you got there, with the 
regular games and busy life.” 

“My aunts don’t like schools. They say boys 
learn to be tyrants and bullies at school.” 

“Oh, do they? You couldn’t have fifty tyrants 
in one place, or they’d be the death of one an¬ 
other, like the Kilkenny cats.” 

“My aunts say,” the boy continued, “that I’m 
to be a result. I won’t be a result. It’s beastly to 
be a result. I’ll be a policeman when I’m grown 
up. Just you wait. I’ll stand outside Parliament, 
and if a woman comes near I’ll carry her to jail. 
You see if I don’t.” 

The boy spoke with such vindictive bitterness 
that the schoolmaster was shocked. 

“I have no doubt,” he said soothingly, “that 
your aunts have good reasons for many of their 
views. You cannot possibly judge of such ques¬ 
tions for many years to come.” 

“You’d judge if you heard it all day long like I 
do,” the boy retorted. “It’s only here I get away 
from it. Here in this nice quiet with that fat, 


92 


BOYS 


contented chap smiling at me; and now yonVe 
been and made me talk about it, so even he will 
know. YouVe gone and spoilt my place—it^s too 
bad. ’ ^ 

The boy looked as if he was really going to cry 
this time, and the schoolmaster felt dreadfully 
guilty. 

‘‘Tell me about your parents,’’ he said hastily. 
“Do you remember them?” 

“My father died before I was born, and my 
mother just after—she always was very unwise. ’ ’ 

“My dear boy, you ought not to speak about 
your mother like that. You shock me.” 

“Well, they say so.” 

‘ ‘ If anyone was to say to me that my mother was 
unwise, I’d—I’d knock him down!” the school¬ 
master exclaimed. 

“P’r’aps you knew her?” 

“Thank God, yes!” 

“Ah, I didn’t, you see—and I don’t think I 
could knock Aunt Amabel down—she’s very 
strong. ’ ’ 

“Of course not, of course not,” the school¬ 
master said hastily. “I never suggested such a 
thing for a moment. I expect you misunderstand 
your aunts, and it is possible that they don’t quite 
understand you.” 

The boy said nothing. He no longer stared at 
Cowley’s portrait. He stared at the schoolmaster, 
and in his melancholy gaze was concentrated all 
the bitterness and disappointment of his twelve 
short years. 


TWENTIETH-CENTURY MISOGYNIST 93 


‘‘Let ns come ont and walk by the Cher,’’ said 
the schoolmaster. 

The boy followed him obediently, and as they 
tnmed into Catharine Street, slipped his hand into 
that of his new acqnaintance. 

‘ ‘ Twelve years old, ’ ’ thonght that worthy, ‘ ‘ and 
he takes a fellow’s hand. Poor little chap!” 
Alond he said: “Boys generally take each other 
by the arm, yon know. ’ ’ 

Instantly his companion seized him by his, and 
arm in arm they songht the sheltered walk loved 
well by Joseph Addison. 

Ill 

After that they met every day in the qnadrangle 
of the Bodleian by appointment, and together 
monnted to their favorite seat in the pictnre- 
gallery. The boy no longer read a magazine; in¬ 
stead, he asked qnestions—endless, anxions, ex- 
hanstive qnestions—as to the nsnal doings and 
habits of boys who lived with each other and were 
bronght np by men. All his ideas on the subject 
were gathered from school stories, and in conse¬ 
quence were crude and chimerical in the extreme. 
It was undoubtedly a shock to him when this 
kindly friend of his frankly admitted that he had 
frequently caned boys, and that he was supposed 
to have “rather a heavy hand.” And the school¬ 
master was still more shocked at the bitterness of 
soul he discovered in this queer, quiet boy. He 
gathered that the aunts—generally spoken of as 
“they”—were ladies wholly absorbed in politics 


94 


BOYS 


and every kind of movement for the emancipation 
of women, and the schoolmaster pictured them as 
members of the shrieking sisterhood, ill-favored 
and ill-dressed, oblivious of the fact that feminine 
political opinions do not necessarily march in 
elastic-sided boots. When the boy did condescend 
to mention one of his aunts by name it was always 
of ‘‘Aunt AmabeB’ he spoke. She appeared to be 
the guiding spirit of the trio, busy, strong, and 
energetic, spending what time she could spare 
from politics in the pursuit of all those games 
from which the unfortunate boy was debarred by 
lack of comrades, and the schoolmaster found him¬ 
self thinking with quite unusual enthusiasm of the 
sister who kept house for him. At times he had 
regretted her exclusively domestic talents. Now 
he even began to share her serene conviction that 
women were, on the whole, so much superior to 
men that only the very foolish could wish to re¬ 
semble them. 

In the course of their long talks the school¬ 
master had enlightened his companion as to what 
constituted, in his simple creed, the whole duty of 
boy; and so far as his ideals related to honor and 
courage and truthfulness, he found the child singu¬ 
larly receptive and responsive; but when he 
touched on the chivalry that should be shown to 
women, when he tried to arouse the protective in¬ 
stinct that is generally so deeply rooted and spon¬ 
taneous in even the most rough and tumble aver¬ 
age boy, he was met by blank incomprehension, 
or a veiled hostility that puzzled and depressed 
him. “If this,’’ thought he to himself, “is the 


TWENTIETH-CENTUEY MISOGYNIST 95 


result of the feminist movement on the rising gen¬ 
eration of men, God help the next generation of 
women! ’ ’ 

The men had come up, and the schoolmaster’s 
holiday was nearly ended. In two days more he 
would need to return to his duties in the North, to 
look after the cricket pitches in the playing-fields, 
and to see that all was shipshape for the hoys’ 
next term. For the last time he met his sad-faced 
little friend in Catharine Street. This time they 
did not go up to the picture-gallery. It was a 
sunny day in late April, when Oxford seems to 
burgeon and blossom in a riotous ecstasy of youth 
and gladness. Eiver and playing-fields were gay 
with lithe, flannelled figures, and everywhere the 
air was sweet with the scent of opening lilacs. 

‘‘We’ll go on the river this afternoon,” cried 
the schoolmaster when he spied the little figure 
waiting for him; “it’s far too fine to be boxed up 
indoors. I’ll take you in a Canadian canoe. You 
must sit very still, you know. You don’t think 
your aunts would mind, do you?” 

“They’re in London. Aunt Amabel comes back 
to-night, but she’ll be o:ff again in a day or two; 
she’s always going to meetings. I’m jolly glad 
she’s been away this week; she might have wanted 
to interfere-” 

“I don’t think she would mind your coming out 
with me, or I wouldn’t take you. You must tell her 
all about it this evening. I’ll give you my card to 
show her, and you can explain how we met.” 

The boy’s dark eyes were mutinous as he took 
the proffered card and put it in his pocket, but he 



96 


BOYS 


said nothing. On the river in the bright sunshine 
the schoolmaster noticed how very ill he looked, 
and a great desire possessed this kindly soul to 
make things easier for the boy. The sight of the 
black shadows encircling the sombre eyes that 
should have been so bright with youth and hope 
decided the schoolmaster to do what he most hated 
doing—to interfere in another’s affairs, where he 
had no possible excuse or even reason for so 
doing. 

He walked back with the boy to his home, one of 
the large, ugly, comfortable houses ‘‘standing in 
its own grounds, ’ ’ that have sprung up on the out¬ 
skirts of beautiful old Oxford: a house that looked 
excessively well-to-do and trim and neat. “Noth¬ 
ing of Mrs. Jellyby here,” thought the school¬ 
master. 

“Shan’t I see you again?” asked the boy in a 
husky whisper, as they reached his gate. “It’ll be 
awful when you ’re gone. ’ ’ 

“We’ll see, we’ll see,” the schoolmaster said 
hastily. “I can’t make an arrangement now. 
Good-bye, my boy. God bless you!” 

The boy’s wistful eyes were more than he could 
bear. The man turned hastily and walked away, 
nor once looked back at the watching figure by the 
gate. 

Next morning he called upon Aunt Amabel about 
ten o’clock. The less conventional the hour, the 
more possible did he feel it might be to explain his 
errand. She was at home and would see him. The 
boy had evidently done his bidding. As he fol¬ 
lowed the maid from the drawing-room to the 


TWENTIETH-CENTURY MISOGYNIST 97 


study, he prayed that some Pentecostal gift of 
tongues might he vouchsafed to him. 

Aunt Amabel was seated at a large knee-hole 
table covered with papers. She rose as he came 
into the room and held out her hand. The busi¬ 
ness-like table, the litter of papers, was exactly 
what the schoolmaster had expected, but the lady 
was wdiolly unlike the lady of his dreams. Tall, 
well-dressed, good-looking, and by no means old, 
she made things harder for him by her welcome. 
‘‘You are the gentleman who has been so good to 
Reginald? It is kind of you to call. I am most 
pleased to meet you. He is a somewhat unusual 
boy, is he not? We rather pride ourselves on his 
taste for old buildings, and things that do not 
generally appeal to boys.’^ 

The schoolmaster mumbled some vague polite¬ 
ness and seated himself upon a chair which faced 
the knee-hole table. Aunt Amabel’s eyes were 
dark, like the boy’s, but they were bright and 
lively, and she turned them now upon her visitor 
with full inquiring gaze. 

“I came,” the schoolmaster said bluntly, “to 
see you about your nephew. He is not well, and I 
think his state of health arises largely from the 
fact that he has no companions of his own age, 
nor suitable interests. Why don’t you send him 
to school?” 

As he spoke he was perfectly conscious that this 
self-possessed young woman was misjudging him, 
and the knowledge made him even less diplomatic 
than usual. 

“We have never considered him strong enough 


98 


BOYS 


for school life. He is an nnnsnal child of difficult 
temperament. He would he extremely unhappy at 
school.’’ 

There was a superior finality in the lady’s tone 
that roused all the fighting element in the school¬ 
master. ^^He could hardly be more unhappy than 
he is at present,” he said sharply. know that 
this must appear, as indeed it is, a piece of unwar¬ 
rantable interference on my part, but, having be¬ 
come really interested in the boy, I could not recon¬ 
cile it to my conscience to leave Oxford without 
warning you that if you persist in keeping your 
nephew away from the natural companionship, 
amusements, and employments of his age, he will 
wither away as surely as a plant withers when light 
and air are withheld from it. That boy will die.” 

He shook a thick forefinger at her, and the scorn 
died out of her eyes. The men who most counten¬ 
ance the woman’s movement are seldom master¬ 
ful. Aunt Amabel began to like this dictatorial 
man. It was a new, and not altogether disagree¬ 
able, experience to be rated. 

‘‘You have a school, haven’t you?” she asked, 
sweetly. 

The schoolmaster’s dun-colored face crimsoned. 
“My dear young lady,” he answered hotly, “if 
you imagine that I came to see you because I was 
touting for another pupil, pray dismiss the idea 
from your mind. ’ ’ This time it was Aunt Amabel 
who blushed. “I came because, knowing a good 
deal of boys, I feel sure that your nephew is deli¬ 
cate because he is lonely and unoccupied; he is a 
very boyish boy, a boy who needs the companion- 


TWENTIETH-CENTURY MISOGYNIST 99 


ship of his o^vn kind. Yon have an excellent pre¬ 
paratory school quite near here. Try for a term— 
see what it does for Reginald.” 

‘‘To be quite candid,” said Aunt Amabel, “we 
do not care for the training, mental or moral, that 
boys receive at the average preparatory school.” 

“Try one thaUs not average,” he interrupted. 
“There are plenty of them, all fads and flannel 
shirts and girls thrown in. He won’t learn any¬ 
thing, but what does that matter? It’s health and 
youth and gladness that you want for him, and a 
normal point of view; at present that child’s a 
perfect misogynist.” 

The lady started at the word, and at this criti¬ 
cal moment her nephew came into the room. At 
first he did not see his friend of the Bodleian; 
when he did he stopped short, looking from his 
aunt to her visitor with puzzled, timid eyes. 

“Reginald,” said Aunt Amabel, “this gentle¬ 
man says you are lonely and unhappy, and that 
you would really like to go to school. Is this sol” 

“Yes.” 

The timid look faded from the boy’s eyes to be 
replaced by one that was almost stern, so earnest 
was it. 

“lYhy have you never said anything to me 
about it I You have never complained.” 

“What was the use!” 

“But how could we know you were not happy 
if you never said anything!” 

‘ ‘ He knew, without my never saying anything. ’ ’ 
The boy pointed at the schoolmaster, who sat with 
downcast eyes. 



100 


BOYS 


‘‘So it appears,’’ the lady said somewhat tartly, 
“although yon seem to me to have said a good 
deal. That will do, Keginald; yon may go. ’ ’ 

But Reginald did not go. He looked at the 
schoolmaster, and he looked at his annt. He took 
a step forward, exclaiming earnestly: “If yon 
will let me he like other hoys, Annt Amabel, I 
won’t be a policeman when I’m grown np; I’ll give 
it np; I ’ll truly be something else, ” The boy spoke 
as one who promises to part with some long- 
cherished and imperishable ideal. 

“Oh, child!” exclaimed poor, puzzled Annt 
Amabel, “I can’t imagine what yon are talking 
about. Bo run away.” 

“Yon see,” said the boy sadly to the school¬ 
master, “she never can understand,” and he 
hastened from the room. 

The schoolmaster rose. “Believe me,” he said 
gently, “I do not want your nephew for a pupil. 
I’d far rather keep him as a friend—I don’t mean 
to say that a master can’t be a friend to his boys, 
but the relationship must necessarily be a little 
different, and it has been a pleasant experience to 
come across a boy under quite new circumstances. 
I wouldn’t spoil it for the world.” 

Aunt Amabel looked down, and the schoolmaster 
noticed that her eyelashes were long and very 
black. “I am sure you mean kindly,” she said 
gently, “and you may be sure I shall give every 
consideration to what you have said.” 

When her strange visitor had gone she sat for a 
long time quite still in front of her table, staring 
with unseeing eyes at the many papers scattered 


TWENTIETH-CENTUEY MISOGYNIST 101 


upon it. She knitted her black eyebrows and 
thought and thought, but apparently to no pur¬ 
pose, for presently she said to herself: ‘‘What 
could he mean by calling that little boy a misogy¬ 
nist, and what on earth could the child mean about 
not being a policeman T’ 

The boy was waiting for the schoolmaster at the 
gate as he went out. “Well, was it any use?” he 
cried eagerly. 

“My dear chap,” said that gentleman, “you are 
a little noodle. That’s what you are.” 

And the boy, as he trotted by the schoolmaster’s 
side, found something vaguely comforting in this 
cryptic speech. 


t 







PART II 


CHILDREN OF LAST CENTURY 






A SMALL EVENT 


All service ranks the same with God: 

If now, as formerly He trod 

Paradise, His presence fills 

Our earth, each only as God wills 

Can work—God’s puppets, best and worst, 

Are we; there is no last nor first. 

Say not ‘ ‘ a small event ’ ’! Why ^ ‘ small ’ ’ 7 
Costs it more pain than this, ye call 
A ‘ ‘ great event ’ ’ should come to pass. 

Than that 7 Untwine me from the mass 
Of deeds which make up life, one deed 
Power shall fall short in or exceed! 

Pippa Passes. 

Every night the Alfresco Entertainers gave their 
performance on a little platform set right under 
the shadow of the great clitf; while in front of 
them, not a dozen yards away, the rhythmic wash 
of the sea on a rocky shore seemed a sort of accom¬ 
paniment to their songs, much softer and more 
tuneful than that of the poor, jingly, rheumatic 
piano, which had nothing between it and every sort 
of weather save an ancient mackintosh cover. 

The village itself was but a shelf of shore with 
one long, straggling, lop-sided street: cottage and 
shop and great hotel set down haphazard, cheek 

105 


106 CHILDREN OF LAST CENTURY 


by jowl, all apparently somewhat inept excres¬ 
cences on the side of the green-clad cliits rising 
behind them straight and steep, a sheer five hun¬ 
dred feet, and just across the narrow line of red 
road lies the Bristol Channel, with, on a clear day, 
the Welsh coast plainly in view. 

At ten years old, people are generally found 
more interesting than scenery, and Basil took a 
great interest in the variety entertainers. They 
looked so smart and debonair, he thought, in their 
blue reefers, white duck trousers, and gold-laced 
yachting caps—though they none of them ever put 
out to sea. There were five of them altogether, 
two ladies and three men. Basil did not care so 
much about the ladies, in spite of the rows of 
Chinese lanterns that outlined the little stage and 
shone so pink in the darkness; there seemed no 
glamor or mystery about them. They were not 
transcendently beautiful like the gauzy good fairy 
of pantomime, or the peerless, fearless circus lady 
in pink and spangles: neither did they possess the 
mirth-provoking qualities of the dauntless three 
clad in yatching garb. One always sang sentiment¬ 
ally of ‘Maddies,’’ or ‘‘aunties,” or “chords,” 
that had somehow gone amissing; and the other— 
Basil almost disliked that other—sang about things 
he could in no wise understand, in a hoarse voice, 
and danced in between the verses, and she didn’t 
dance at all prettily, for she had thick ankles and 
high shoulders. 

But the three “naval gentlemen,” as Basil re¬ 
spectfully called them, sang funny songs, and acted 
and knocked each other about in such fashion as 


A SMALL EVENT 


107 


cansed him almost to roll off his chair in fits of 
ecstatic mirth. Nearly every fine night after din¬ 
ner, if nobody wanted him, Harnet, the tall man¬ 
servant, would take Basil, and they sat on two 
chairs in the front row and listened to the enter¬ 
tainment. Sometimes grandfather himself would 
come, but he generally went to sleep in his chair 
at home; for when a man goes peel-fishing all day, 
walking half a dozen miles up the rocky bank of a 
Devonshire trout stream to his favorite pool, he is 
disinclined to move again, once he has changed 
and dined. 

The bulk of the audience attending the Alfresco 
Entertainment sat on the wall separating shore 
from road, or on the curbstone, but there were 
always a few chairs placed directly facing the 
stage, which were charged for at sixpence each. 
Hamet was far too grand and dignified to sit on 
either wall or curbstone, and as grandfather al¬ 
ways gave Basil a shilling to put in the cardboard 
plate, Harnet preferred to spend it in this wise. 

Now all that company had high-sounding, aris¬ 
tocratic names, except one, who was called, as 
Basil said, ‘‘just simply Mr. Smith.’’ There was 
Mr. Montmorency, the manager, whose cheeks 
were almost as blue as his reefer, and his wife, 
the lady who danced in the evening, but in the 
daytime affected flowing tea-gowney garments and 
large flat hats; there was Mr. Neville Beauchamp, 
who sang coster songs, to whom the particular 
accent required for this sort of ditty really seemed 
no effort, as all his songs were given in similarly 
pronounced and singular fashion. The lady of 


108 CHILDEEN OF LAST CENTURY 


the melancholy ballads was called De Vere; she 
looked thin and young and generally cold, as well 
she might, for she played everyone’s accompani¬ 
ments, and never wore a coat, however cold the 
night. But it was for Mr. Smith that Basil felt 
most enthusiasm. In the first place, his speaking 
voice was as the voices of ‘‘grandfather’s 
friends.” In the second, he was, to Basil’s think¬ 
ing, an admirable actor—changing face and voice, 
even his very body, to suit the part he happened 
to be playing; and thirdly, he was funny—funny 
in a way that Basil understood. Even grand¬ 
father laughed at Mr. Smith and applauded him, 
and when the cardboard plate went round, he sent 
Basil with the first bit of gold they had had that 
season. 

“Clever chap that,” he said as they strolled 
homeward under the quiet stars. “Reminds me 
of someone somehow—looks like a broken-down 
gentleman; got nice voice, and nice hands—^won¬ 
der what he’s doing with that lot ? ” 

Basil, however, was quite content to admire Mr. 
Smith without concerning himself as to his ante¬ 
cedents. He forthwith christened him “the jokey 
man,” and it rather puzzled him that, except at 
night, the jokey man was hardly ever with the 
others, but went wandering about by himself in an 
aimless and somewhat dismal fashion. Could it 
be that Mr. Montmorency and Mr. Neville Beau¬ 
champ were proud, Basil wondered, because they 
had such fine names. 

Basil’s face was as round as a full moon, and 
fresh and fair as a monthly rose. Tall and well 


A SMALL EVENT 


109 


set np, he was good at games, and keen on every 
kind of sport. Long days did he spend np the 
river with his grandfather fishing for trout—he 
was to have a license for peel next summer, but 
had to be content with trout during this. He went 
sea-fishing, too, in charge of a nice fisherman called 
Oxenham, and caught big pollock outside the bay, 
and every morning Oxenham rowed Basil and 
Hamet out from the shore that they might have 
their morning swim, for the coast is so rocky and 
dangerous that bathing from the land is no fun at 
all—though the rocks are very nice to potter about 
on at low tide, when energetic persons can find 
prawns in the pools. 

One day as Basil was busily engaged in this 
pursuit, who should come up behind him but the 
jokey man, looking as melancholy as though there 
was no sunshine, or blue water,’ or pleasant pools 
full of strange sea beasts. Indeed, although he 
was by profession such an amusing man, he had 
by no means a cheerful face. Tired lines were 
written all round his eyes, his shoulders were bent, 
and his long slim hands hung loose and listless at 
his sides, yet it was plain that he was by no means 
old, Moreover, he had changed his smart yacht¬ 
ing suit for an old tweed coat and knickerbockers, 
and a grey billycock dragged over his eyes bereft 
his appearance of all traces of the jokey man. So 
that for a minute or two Basil did not know him, 
even although he sat down on a rock close by and 
lit his pipe. 

Basil was standing bare-legged and knee-deep 
in water in pursuit of a particularly active and art- 


110 CHILDEEN OF LAST CENTUEY 


fill shrimp, so that it was only when he at last 
lifted his head with an emphatic ‘‘bother,’’ that 
he noticed the stranger; then he beamed, for 
chance had tossed plump into his lap the oppor¬ 
tunity he had long been seeking. 

“How do you do?” the little boy inquired po¬ 
litely, taking off his muffin cap with one wet hand 
while he grasped his net with the other. “I am 
so pleased to have met you; I’ve wanted to for 
ever so long.” 

“That’s very nice of you,” said the man, and 
when he smiled he looked quite young. “I am 
sure the pleasure is mutual.” 

“I’ve something most pertickler to ask you,” 
continued Basil eagerly, scrambling out of the pool 
to sit on the rock beside him, “and it seemed as 
if I was never to get a chance. It’s not for my¬ 
self either, it’s for Viola—^you know Viola by 
sight, I dare say?” 

Now it happened that the jokey man, like most 
other people in that village, Imew Viola by sight 
very well indeed. In fact, Viola, and the General, 
and Basil, were as speedily pointed out to every 
stranger who arrived as though they had been bits 
of scenery. For they came every summer and the 
village was proud of them. 

“Is she your sister?” asked the jokey man, sud¬ 
denly taking his pipe out of his mouth. 

“Yes, and she’s two year older than me, but she 
doesn’t go to school—I’ve been for a year—she has 
a ma’mseUe. I dare say you’ve seen us with her. 
It’s been such a bore having her here, but she’s 
going to-morrow, and then we shall do just what 


A SMALL EVENT 


111 


we like, for tKere will be only Harnet and Polly, 
and we like them. Grannie had to go off qnite 
suddenly to nurse Aunt Alice, and won’t be back 
for a week, so there’ll be nobody but grandfather 
and us; it’ll be simply ripping,” and Basil paused 
breathless, beaming at the pleasant picture he had 
conjured up. 

The jokey man put his pipe back into his mouth 
and waited; but it had gone out, so he just laid it 
on the rocks beside him, saying: 

‘‘What was it you wanted to ask me?” 

“It’s rather difficult to explain,” Basil began, 
turning very red and rumpling his hair. “It’s 
Viola, you know; she wants so dreadfully to come 
to your entertainment. I’ve told her about it, you 

know, but grandfather says-” Here Basil 

paused, and turned even redder than before: 
‘ ‘ One has to be so particular over one’s girls, you 
know,” he interpolated apologetically, “and she’s 
the only girl in our family. Grandfather never 
had any sisters or any daughters, so he thinks no 
end of Viola, and father and mother are in India, 
and he says-” 

“That some of the songs are vulgar,” said the 
jokey man shortly. “So they are; he’s perfectly 
right. ’ ’ 

The jokey man looked at Basil, and Basil looked 
at the jokey man for a full minute. Then the little 
boy said very earnestly: 

“Do you think that you could persuade them— 
those other gentlemen, I mean—to leave out one 
or two songs one evening ? There’s that one about 
the ‘giddy little girl in the big black hat’ that Mr. 




112 CHILDREN OF LAST CENTURY 

Montmorency sings. Grandfather doesn’t like that 
one, and it’s not very amusing, is it? And Viola 
does want to come so dreadfully.” 

The jokey man made no reply, but stared 
straight out to sea with a very grave face. Per¬ 
haps he was thinking of all those other Violas who 
listened night after night to the songs the General 
objected to, and were perhaps, unlike his Viola, 
not cared about, kept out of harm, and schemed 
for, safe in love as with a charm. ’ ’ 

Basil waited politely for some minutes, then, as 
the jokey man didn’t speak, he continued earn¬ 
estly : 

‘‘You see she can just hear that there is music 
and singing when the windows are open, and it’s 
so tantalizing, and you see it would be rude to 
walk away when we’d heard you, and come back 
next time you sang, wouldn’t it ? It doesn’t matter 
for boys-” 

“I’m not at all sure of that,” said Mr. Smith 
hastily; “it matters very much for boys, too, I 
think—especially if they don’t happen to have 
wise grandfathers with good taste. I’ll see what 
can be done, and let you know. ’ ’ 

“Oh, thank you so much!” cried Basil; “that 
is kind of you. Viola will be so pleased; she’s up 
the village now with Polly, or I’d fetch her to 
thank you herself.” 

Now while Basil was talking he noticed that the 
jokey man’s coat had got leather on the shoulders, 
and that the leather looked as worn as the coat, so 
he rightly deduced that at some time or another 



A SMALL EVENT 113 

his new friend must have been something of a 
sportsman, and asked: 

‘‘D^you fish at all?’’ 

‘‘Not here,” said the jokey man, “bnt I’ve done 
some fishing in my time. Have you had good 
sport?” 

Then immediately ensued a long discussion on 
the relative merits of flies, and Basil gave forth 
his opinion, an opinion hacked up by the experi¬ 
ence of numerous natives, that the “Coachman” 
was the fly for that neighborhood, but that there 
were occasions, especially early in July, when ex¬ 
ceedingly good results might be obtained by using 
red ants. They told each other fishing stories. 
Basil confided to the jokey man that he had just 
got a beautiful new split cane rod from “Hardy 
Brothers,” promised to show it to him at the earli¬ 
est possible opportunity, and they speedily be¬ 
came the best of friends. For it is a curious fact 
that although the actual sport itself is a somewhat 
taciturn pursuit, there are no more conversational 
sportsmen in the world than ardent followers of 
the gentle craft. 

Another thing—they are always courteous lis¬ 
teners, and generally full of good stories them¬ 
selves, yet have the most delicate appreciation of 
other people’s anecdotes. You can nearly always 
tell a member of a fishing family by this rare and 
pleasing trait. 

Next morning the jokey man called at the hotel 
and asked for Basil at the door. He wouldn’t 
come in, and when Basil, greatly excited, appeared, 
only waited to say hastily: “If you like to bring 


114 CHILDREN OF LAST CENTURY 


your sister to-night, I think I can promise you 
that it will be all right.” Then fled before Basil 
could thank him, and was soon pounding up the 
steep hill that ends abruptly at the hotel door, as 
though he were training for a mountaineering 
race. 

Basil tore back into their sitting-room to lay the 
case before his grandfather, who, for once, w^as 
lunching in the hotel. 

‘‘He promised, you know,” he concluded jubi¬ 
lantly, “so she can come, can’t she?” 

Grandfather pulled his moustache and laughed. 
Then Viola came and laid her fresh soft cheek 
against his, murmuring pleadingly: “Darling, it 
would be so lovely,” till he pinched Viola’s cheek 
and made stipulations about heavy cloaks, and the 
children knew the day was won. 

And the end of it all was that, at half-past eight 
that evening, grandfather, Basil and Viola were 
seated on three chairs in the very middle of the 
road that ran past the Alfresco Entertainers’ 
stage; but as the road ends abruptly in a precipi¬ 
tous rock some thirty yards further along, there 
is no fear of being run over by traffic. 

What an evening of delight that was! How 
Basil and Viola laughed, and how pleased was 
grandfather! Another thing is quite certain— 
that the Alfresco Entertainers in no way lost by 
the alterations they had made in their programme; 
the rest of the audience seemed as pleased as Basil 
and Viola, and no one appeared to miss the “giddy 
little girl in the big black hat” the least little bit 
in the world. 


A SMALL EVENT 


115 


‘‘Keally, it’s vastly civil of Mr. Thingnmmy,” 
said grandfather on their way home. 

• •••••• 

Grandfather and Harnet had gone fishing for 
the whole day. Mademoiselle had departed, only 
Polly was left in charge, and she had so had a 
headache—she put it do^vn to the close, clondy 
weather—that she was fain to go and lie down 
directly she had waited upon Basil and Viola at 
their lunch, having given the children permission 
to go for a walk along the beach. 

It was a grey day, humid and still, and, being 
low tide, there seemed no fresh wind blowing in 
from the sea as usual. The children scrambled 
over the rocks, very happy and important at being, 
for once, left to their own devices, and they de¬ 
cided to make an expedition to a little sandy bay 
that can be reached from the shore at low tide, 
and to come back by a steep winding path up the 
cliffs which terminates in the coach road just 
above the village. They had not considered it 
necessary to confide their intention to Polly, who 
would certainly have objected. They reached the 
bay all right, paddled for a little time on the hard, 
smooth sand, and then set out to climb the path 
which winds in and out of the side of the clitf for 
all the world like a spiral staircase up to some 
nine hundred feet above the sea. This path is so 
narrow that travelers can only walk in Indian file. 
On the one side is the steep face of the heather- 
clad rock, on the other a sheer drop on to the rocks 
below. 

.When the children had climbed about a third of 



116 CHILDREN OF LAST CENTURY 


the way they fonnd themselves enveloped in white 
mist—a mist so thick, and fine, and clinging, that 
you cannot see your own hand held before your 
face. It was no use to go down again; the tide 
had turned, and soon the sea would be lapping 
gently at the foot of the pathway. There was 
nothing for it but to go on slowly, carefully, step 
by step, feeling all the time for the rocks on the 
inner side; by and by the path would widen. 

Don’t be frightened, Viola,” said Basil cheer¬ 
fully. ‘Ht’ll take us a goodish while, but a bit 
higher up we can walk together. ’ ’ 

‘H’m not exactly frightened,” said Viola in a 
tremulous voice, ‘^but I rather wish we hadn’t 
come.” 

‘‘So do I,” Basil answered fervently. “If I 
hadn’t been such a juggins I’d have looked up and 
seen the mist on those cliffs long ago. Probably 
you can’t see that there are any cliffs in the village 
now. ’ ’ 

On they toiled, slowly and painfully. It is really 
a most unpleasant mode of progression, walking 
sideways up a hill with your back against a very 
nubbly sort of wall. 

“Hark!” cried Basil presently. “Didn’t you 
hear a call?” 

The children paused, leant against the cliff, and 
listened breathlessly. Sure enough someone was 
calling. It sounded very muffled and far off; but 
it was plainly a man’s voice, and he was calling 
for help. 

“Do you think it’s above or below?” Basil 


A SMALL EVENT 117 

asked anxiously. “I canT seem to tell in this 
fog. ’ ’ 

‘Mt must be above, or we should have heard it 
before. Call out that we’re coming.” 

Basil shouted with all the force of his young 
lungs, and again the faint, muffled voice answered 
with a cry for help. 

‘‘Come on,” exclaimed Basil in great excite¬ 
ment; “we’ll find him!” and sure enough in an¬ 
other bend of the path Basil nearly fell over the 
prostrate figure of a man lying right across it, 
for here it suddenly grew wider. The man raised 
himself on his elbow, exclaiming: 

“I say, do you think that when you get to the 
village you could send help? I’m very much afraid 
that I’ve broken my leg. I can’t stand, and mov¬ 
ing at all hurts it no end. ’ ’ 

“Why, it’s the jokey man!” Basil cried out in 
dismay. “However did you do it?” 

“Oh, dear! oh, dear!” added Viola. “This is 
sad.” 

None of them could see the other, but neverthe¬ 
less, the jokey man knew in a minute who had 
come to his rescue, and forgot his injuries in his 
surprise, exclaiming: 

“Whatever are you two doing here? Is the 
General with you?” 

“Oh, dear, no,” said Viola proudly; “we’re 
quite alone, or we shouldn’t be here, but isn’t it a 
good thing we are here? How did you fall?” 

“I was mooning along, not thinking where I 
was going, when down came the mist. I made a 
false step and went bang over the edge, but only 


118 CHILDREN OF LAST CENTURY 


fell on to the path below, not right over, as I 
might have done. . . . Perhaps it wonld have 
been better if I had,’’ he added to himself. 

‘‘You’d better go and get help, Basil,” said 
Viola decidedly, “and I’ll stay and take care of 
Mr. Smith till they come.” 

But Mr. Smith wouldn’t hear of this. The chil¬ 
dren helped him to crawl as near the inner side 
as possible, and when they left him he nearly 
fainted with the pain of moving. It began to rain, 
the cold, soft, wetting rain of a Devonshire sum¬ 
mer, and Mr. Smith groaned and shivered. 

“I am so sorry for you,” said a soft voice close 
beside him. “Is there nothing I could do? 
Wouldn’t you be more comfortable if you were 
to rest your head in my lap f It would be a sort of 
pillow. Daddie used to go to sleep like that some¬ 
times out on the moors last summer, when they 
were home.” 

“Oh, Viola, Viola!” exclaimed the jokey man, 
with far more distress than he had yet shown, 
“why did you stay? You will get cold. It’s rain¬ 
ing already, and they will be ages.” 

“There’s no use worrying about that,” said 
Viola, edging herself nearer. “We couldn’t leave 
you here all alone and hurt, and Basil wouldn’t let 
me go on to the village ’cause of the fog, so of 
course I stayed. I hope you won’t mind very 
much; I won’t talk if you’d rather not, but I think 
I’d like to hold your hand if you don’t mind. It 
would be comforting.” 

The kind little hand was curiously comforting 
to the jokey man: he insisted on taking off his 


A SMALL EVENT 


119 


coat and wrapping Viola in it, in spite of all her 
protests. Presently the white pall of mist lifted a 
little and they conld see one another, and it cer¬ 
tainly was a great pleasure to the man lying 
against the cliff to watch the little high-bred face 
with the kind blue eyes turned in such friendly 
wise toward him. Viola was so like Basil, and yet 
so entirely individual. BasiPs face was round, 
hers was oval; Basil’s nose was broad and indefi¬ 
nite as yet, Viola’s nose was small and straight 
and decided, with the dearest little band of 
freckles across the bridge. Basil’s manner was 
extremely friendly, Viola’s was tender and pro¬ 
tecting, and it was such a long time since anyone 
had taken care of the jokey man, that he almost 
crooned to himself in the delight of being so 
tended. She was very tender in her inquiries 
after his aches and pains, expressed a pious hope 
that he always wore ‘‘something woolly next him,” 
and being reassured on that head, proceeded to 
suggest that he should smoke if he found it com¬ 
forting. Then she told him a great deal in very 
admirative terms about daddy, and grandfather, 
and Basil, for Viola was of that old-fashioned por¬ 
tion of femininity that looks upon her own man¬ 
kind as beings of stupendous strength and wis¬ 
dom. The man lay watching her very intently, 
but it is not certain that he heard half of what 
she was saying. He had the look of one who was 
trying to make a difficult decision. The voices of 
habit and tradition called very loudly to him just 
then—dared he listen? 


120 CHILDEEN OF LAST CENTUEY 

Presently Viola’s voice ceased. She was evi¬ 
dently waiting for an answer, and none came. 

^‘Have you any sisters, Mr. Smith?” she re¬ 
peated. 

Mr. Smith shook his head, then he raised him¬ 
self on his elbow, saying earnestly: 

‘‘Look here, Viola! I want you to tell me ex¬ 
actly what you think about something. Suppose 
Basil—of course it’s utterly impossible, but still— 
suppose that when he was grown up he did some¬ 
thing that annoyed you all very much, something 
disappointing and entirely against his father’s 
wishes”—he paused, for Viola looked very grave 
and pained—“and then,” he continued, “if he 
went right out of sight, and you, none of you, heard 
anything more about him for nearly a year—sup¬ 
posing then he was sorry, said he was sorry-” 

“We should never lose sight of Basil,” said 
Viola decidedly, her eyes dark and tragic at the 
mere thought. “At least, I’m sure I shouldn’t; 
whatever he did I should love him just the same. 
You don’t love people for their goodness—^you 
love them because they’re they/^ 

“Are you sure?” asked the jokey man earnestly. 

Viola looked hard at him, turned very red, and 
said shyly: 

“Do you think you could tell me just what you 
did? I know it’s you.” 

The man leant back against the wall again. 

“It’s not an interesting story,” he said wearily, 
“but it may pass the time. I was at the ’varsity, 
Cambridge. I was always very fond of acting, 
and I was extravagant and lazy, too. The very 



A SMALL EVENT 


121 


term I went in for my degree I was acting in the 
A.D.C., and—I was plucked. My father was furi¬ 
ous. Then came a whole sheaf of debts. He said 
I must go back to a small college, live on next to 
nothing, work, and take my degree. Instead of 
taking my punishment like a man, I quarreled 
with everybody, vowed I’d go on to the stage, and 
came to this. I have kept body and soul together, 
and I don’t think I’ve done anything to be 
ashamed of since, but I’m sick and sorry at the 
whole business. Yet now that I’m all smashed up 
and useless, it seems somehow mean to go back. 
My father’s a parson, you know, not over well 
otf, and there are a good many of us.” 

All the pauses in his story, and there were a 
good many, had been punctuated by Viola with 
reassuring little pats, and now that the pause was 
so long that he seemed to have finished his story, 
she turned a beaming face toward him. 

‘ ‘ How glad they will be! ” she exclaimed. ‘ ‘ Yon 
must write to-night directly you get back. How 
glad your mother will be!” 

A spasm of pain crossed his face. ‘‘My mother 
died just before I left school,” he said. 

Viola’s eyes filled with tears, and she had just 
exclaimed, “And you have no sisters either, you 
poor dear?” when the rescue party, accompanied 
by Basil and the nearly frantic Polly, appeared 
just below them. They carried the jokey man to 
the foot of the clitf and took him back to the vil¬ 
lage in a boat, and as his ankle proved to be very 
badly broken he elected to go into the cottage hos¬ 
pital on the hill. The long wait in the wet, that 


122 CHILDEEN OF LAST CENTUEY 


had not in the least hurt Viola, proved altogether 
too mnch for the jokey man. That night he be¬ 
came feverish and delirious, and when the chil¬ 
dren and the General went to ask for him next 
day, they were told that he was very ill indeed, 
and that the broken anlde was quite a small mat¬ 
ter in comparison with the pneumonia. That eve¬ 
ning the doctor called on the General, and directly 
the performance was over, the General went to 
see the Alfresco Players at their lodgings. 

‘‘Do you happen to know who his people arel^^ 
the General asked Mrs. Montmorency. 

“He never let on that heM got any folks, poor 
fellah, ’ ’ she answered with a sob. She had a kind 
heart if her ankles were thick. “He was never 
one to talk about himself, and he’s never had so 
much as a postcard by post since he’s been here, 
that I do know. His real name’s not Smith at all; 
all his linen—^beautiful and fine his shirts are too 
—^is all marked ‘Selsley.’ ” 

“Have you no idea what part of the country he 
came from?” the General asked. “Then we could 
look in a directory. It would be a horrible thing 
if-” 

“He joined us in London,” Mrs. Montmorency 
gasped between her sobs, while her tears made 
little pathways on her painted cheeks. ‘ ‘ He hadn’t 
any references, but I persuaded my husband to 
take him. He carried his references in his face, I 
said, and so I’m sure we’ve found it, for a nicer, 
more obliging, gentlemanly-” 

“Do you think, sir,” Mr. Montmorency inter¬ 
rupted, “that he told the little lady anything 




A SMALL EVENT 123 

about himself when they were up on the cliff to¬ 
gether ? ’ ’ 

‘‘God bless my soul!’’ exclaimed the General in 
great excitement. “Of course he did; I have it. 
Who has got a clergy list?” 

Naturally none of the Alfresco Players pos¬ 
sessed such a work, and it was already too late to 
knock up the vicar of the parish. But next morn¬ 
ing the General called on the vicar very early, and 
then despatched an exceedingly long telegram to 
the post office and several bottles of champagne 
to the cottage hospital, where Polly, Basil and 
Viola hung about the doors all the morning hoping 
for better news. The Alfresco Players got out a 
green leaflet to the effect that there would be that 
night a benefit performance for that talented 
artist, Mr. Smith, who had been suddenly stricken 
down by serious illness. The General seemed to 
send and receive a great many telegrams, and did 
not go fishing all that day. At sundown there was 
no better news at the hospital, and it seemed ex¬ 
ceedingly probable that the jokey man would joke 
no more. The General met the last train, and 
drove away from the station accompanied by an 
elderly, severe-looking clergyman. They stopped 
at the hospital and the clergyman went in. 

♦ •••••• 

The jokey man was so noisy and talked so con¬ 
tinuously that the hospital authorities had him 
moved from the men’s surgical ward into a little 
room by himself. As the matron showed the 
strange clergyman into this room, a nurse rose 
from the chair at the bedside. The jokey man’s 


124 CHILDKEN OF LAST CENTURY 

voice was no longer lond, bnt he kept saying the 
same thing over and over again. 

‘‘All day long he keeps repeating it,’^ she whis¬ 
pered. “I’m so thankfnl yon Ve come, for he can’t 
possibly last if this restlessness continues.” 

“I’m sure he’ll come if you send,” the weak, 
irritable voice went on. “Why don’t you send? 
I want my father—‘father, I have sinned’—that’s 
it—‘father, I have sinned’—but I know he’ll come 
if you send. I want my father, I tell you—why 
won’t you send? I want my father.” 

The whispering voice persisted in its plaint, the 
hot hands plucked at the sheet when other hands 
closed over them, holding them firmly, and the 
voice he was waiting for said quietly: 

“My dear son, I am here.” 

As the sick man raised his tired eyes to the 
grave grey face bent over him, his troubled mind 
was flooded with an immense content, his poig¬ 
nant restlessness was calmed. 

‘ ‘ Good old father! ” he said softly, and lay quite 
still. 

The jokey man thought better of it, and didn’t 
die after all. In another week Basil and Viola 
were allowed to go and see him. They stood very 
hushed and solemn on either side of his bed, for 
he looked very thin and white, and was still lying 
right on his back, which made him seem more ill 
somehow. For quite a minute nobody said any¬ 
thing at all, till Basil, who held a large folded 
bracken leaf in his hand, laid it down on the jokey 
man’s chest and spread it out. A fish speckled 
with brown reposed in solemn glory in the midst. 


A SMALL EVENT 


125 


‘‘It’s for your dinner,” whispered Basil. “It’s 
only four ounces off the pound. I caught it my¬ 
self two hours ago. Viola saw me do it. I think 
a ‘Coachman’s’ the best fly after all.” 


IN DURANCE VILE 


Gabrielle always remembered the day that the 
ringmaster of the circus came to see her pony 
jnmp. She was proud of her pony, who was 
dapple grey and Welsh, and could jump nine inches 
higher than himself. 

Gabrielle was five, and had ridden without a 
leading rein for two years, but her father never 
let her jump Roland, the pony. So the pony 
jumped by himself, greatly to the edification of 
the ringmaster who had been bidden to see the 
feat. 

While all this was going on, Nana called her to 
nursery tea, and as she trotted down the long 
yard, past the stables, and towards the drive, the 
ringmaster turned to Jack Ainslie, Gabrielle’s 
father, and said: ‘‘Has the little Missie hurt her 
foot? She’s a thought lame.” 

Jack Ainslie looked hastily after the idolized 
little figure, and noted that the ringmaster was 
right. She was a thought lame. 

Hastily excusing himself, he ran after the child. 
“Have you hurt your foot, darling?” he asked 
anxiously. “You’re limping a little. Did you 
twist your ankle ? ’ ’ 

“Oh, no. Daddy dear, I’m not hurt. I’m going 

126 


IN DUEANCE VILE 


127 


to tea.’^ Gabrielle pat up her face for the ever- 
expected kiss and ran after her nurse. Jack Ains- 
lie dismissed the subject from his mind and 
showed the ringmaster the rest of the horses. 

From that day, however, things changed for 
Gabrielle. Other people noticed the little limp, 
and her parents, terrified and distressed, sent for 
the family doctor. He discovered that in some 
way, probably at birth, her hip had been dislo¬ 
cated, and had formed a new socket for itself, and 
that henceforth she would limp—unless—and here 
all the mischief began—something could be done. 
Her father was frantic. Of course something 
must be done. That his Gabrielle, his dainty little 
lady with her pretty face, her quick intelligence, 
and her gracious ways, should be lame—oh, it 
was intolerable! He was broken-hearted and re¬ 
bellious, and even his wife’s steadfast patience 
and unchanging tenderness could not make him 
resigned. Then began for Gabrielle a series of 
visits to London. She was taken from one great 
doctor to another till she grew quite used to march¬ 
ing about on thick piled carpets, clad in nothing 
but her sunny hair, while they discussed her in¬ 
teresting ‘‘case.” 

“Doctors are chilly men,” said Gabrielle; “their 
hands are always cold to my body.” 

An operation was arranged, but at the last mo¬ 
ment Jack Ainslie drew back, for the surgeons 
would not guarantee success, and the family doc¬ 
tor said grave things about Gabrielle’s constitu¬ 
tional delicacy. So it was decided that more 
gradual means must be tried to bring about the 




128 CHILDEEN OF LAST CENTUEY 


desired result. The ^‘gradual meansassumed 
the shape of an instrument, hideous to behold and 
painful to wear. It broke Jack Ainslie’s heart to 
see his little lady cabined and confined in such a 
cruel cage, and for the little lady herself it blot¬ 
ted out the sunshine and made life very grey and 
terrible. One thing was quite plain to Gabrielle, 
and that was that evidently Nature was very much 
to blame in having provided a new ‘^socket’’ for 
the poor little dislocated bone. This impertinence 
must be interfered with at all costs—the doctors 
seemed to agree upon that. And Gabrielle won¬ 
dered why it was so wrong to have no pain, to be 
perfectly unconscious of her ‘^affiction,’^ as her 
nurse called it, and so interesting (to the doctors) 
and right, to be uncomfortable and to wear a hide¬ 
ous high-soled boot and an iron cage, with crutches 
under the arms that pushed her shoulders up to 
her ears. 

As for the instrument, it was designed and or¬ 
dered by three famous surgeons, and it cost the 
price of many ponies. Gabrielle tried to be brave. 
She was curiously conscious that the pain her par¬ 
ents suffered was far greater than her own. The 
instrument was adjusted in London, and on the 
way home in the train her mother asked her many 
times, ‘‘Does it hurt you, my darling?’’ And 
Gabrielle always answered bravely, “I can bear 
it, mother dear; I can bear it! ” 

When she got home that night, the poor little 
leg was black from the cruel pressure, and Mary 
Ainslie broke down and cried till she could cry no 
longer. Gabrielle tried to walk bravely in her 


IN DUKANCE VILE 


129 


cramping irons, and to smile at her parents when 
she met their troubled eyes. At first she broke 
the thing continually, for she was an active child, 
much given to jumping off chairs and playing at 
circus on the big old sofa. But by and by all de¬ 
sire to jump and run left her. She grew high¬ 
shouldered, and would sit very still for hours, 
while her daddy told her stories or drove her be¬ 
hind Roland in a little basket-carriage he had 
bought for her. Truly the iron entered into her 
soul, the cruel iron that cramped the child’s soft 
body; and Gabrielle’s eyes grew larger and larger, 
and her chin more pointed, while the once plump 
little hands were white as the petals of the pear- 
blossom outside the nursery window. 

‘‘I wish people wouldn’t ask me about it; they 
are kind, but I wash they wouldn’t,” Gabrielle 
would say. ‘‘I’m tired of telling them about the 
socket, and I’m not ‘a poor little soul’—I’m 
daddy’s little lady!” 

There came to Jack Ainslie a very old college 
friend, a doctor, Gabrielle’s godfather, and de¬ 
voted to her, and he was supremely dissatisfied 
with her treatment and implored them to take her 
to see a young surgeon, a friend of his own, who 
was making a great name, and doing wonders for 
everyone who came under his care. Jack Ainslie 
and his wife needed but small persuasion, and it 
was decided that Gabrielle should go to London 
as soon as possible. 

What hastened the visit was this: Gabrielle 
was devoted to fairy lore, and a favorite play of 
hers was to be the beautiful princess who is freed 


130 CHILDREN OF LAST CENTURY 


from giants and dragons and lions by the gallant 
‘‘Boots’’ of the Norse tales. Her father always 
enacted the part of that redoubtable third son, 
and was wont to kneel before her, making extrava¬ 
gant protestations of his devotion, which she ac¬ 
cepted with gracious condescension. On this par¬ 
ticular afternoon, just after tea, her father pro¬ 
posed to play the favorite game, but Gabrielle 
would have none of it. “I can’t be a princess any 
more. Daddy; I’m sure no princess ever wore an 
instrument!” she said. “I don’t feel like a prin¬ 
cess any more at all.” Her father caught her up 
in his arms, with a great hard sob, which fright¬ 
ened her, and she stroked his face, saying ten¬ 
derly: “Don’t be sorry, dear, dear Dad! I 
didn’t mean to hurt you. I’ll be a princess, I will, 
indeed! I will feel like a princess really!” The 
next day Jack Ainslie and his wife took Gabrielle 
up to town. They did not even take the faithful 
Nana, for Gabrielle’s mother could hardly bear to 
let any hands but hers touch her darling, ever 
since the day that the ringmaster had made his 
sad discovery. 

Mary Ainslie took Gabrielle to the new doctor 
the following morning, while Jack sat in the smok¬ 
ing-room of the hotel, lighting innumerable cigars 
which he did not smoke, and turning over illus¬ 
trated papers which he did not see. Then he 
turned out of the hotel and walked down Piccadilly, 
blundering into the passers-by, and when he 
crossed the road, was nearly ridden over by an 
omnibus, so blind and stupid was he in his heavy 
sorrow. Poor Jack! his honest heart was very 


IN DURANCE VILE 


131 


full of grief, for he loved his little lady dearly, 
and he felt that unless something were done 
quickly, he would soon have nothing but a tender 
memory to love. 

Gabrielle and her mother were shown into the 
new doctor’s consulting-room at once. He was a 
tall young man, with red hair and keen green eyes. 
Her mother undressed Gabrielle, all but the ‘in¬ 
strument,” which clasped the tender little body, 
and seemed so cruelly unnecessary. The young 
doctor frowned when he saw it, then he took it off 
himself, and Gabrielle noticed that his touch was 
as gentle as her mother’s, and that his hands were 
warm. She gave a happy little shake when she 
was free of it, a little wriggle and jump of relief. 
Then the doctor made her walk, and felt her all 
over, after which he rolled her up in a big fur 
rug, to sit in front of the fire, while he went into 
the next room with her mother. They were not 
long away, and on their return Gabrielle looked 
up at the doctor with bright, curious eyes. 

“Does the instrument hurt you?” he asked. 
Gabrielle looked at it, as it leaned feebly against 
a chair, and said: “It does, rather; but it does its 
best not to. I think ... !” 

“Well, any way, you’re not going to wear it 
any more. Are you glad?” 

“But what will the socket do?” 

“Bless me, child; they’ve talked about you far 
too much. The socket will do beautifully—much 
better without it than with it!” 

“May I wear shoes like other little girls?” 


132 CHILDREN OF LAST CENTURY 

“Certainly: the prettiest shoes that can be 
got! ’ ’ 

‘^Not compensatum shoes?’’ 

‘‘No; ordinary shoes, exactly alike!” 

By this time Gabrielle had been arrayed in some 
clothes. She noticed that her mother’s hands 
trembled, bnt that her eyes were glad. The child 
looked np at the tall yonng doctor, who was watch¬ 
ing her with his keen green eyes, and said: “My 
Daddy will be so glad. He will look at me, and not 
look so sorry, and there will be no hard things to 
stick into him when he cuddles me! He will be so 
glad!” 

The doctor made a queer little sound in his 
throat; then he lifted Gabrielle in his arms and 
carried her to the window. 

“Do you see the end of this street,” he asked, 
“where the roar and the rumbling sound comes 
from? That’s Oxford Street. Well, in that street 
is a beautiful shop full of shoes—shoes for little 
girls—and you are going there directly, to get the 
prettiest pair that mother can find for you!” 

“May they have silver buckles?” Gabrielle 
asked eagerly. 

“I think it extremely advisable they should have 
big silver buckles. You will walk both fast and 
far in buckles shoes, and you must learn to dance 
the tarantella^ and all the dolls will sit in a row 
to watch you! ’ ’ 

Gabrielle gave a delighted laugh. “Will the leg 
that wore the irons get fat again, like the other?” 

“Oh, dear, yes! You mustn’t think about that 
leg any more, but you must do all the exercises 


IN DURANCE VILE 


133 


mother is going to show you, and when you can 
hang on a trapeze for twenty minutes, without 
falling ofP, you must write and tell me.’’ 

Then Gabrielle’s mother finished dressing her, 
all but her boots. The boot with the ‘^compen- 
satum” sole lay near the instrument. Gabrielle 
looked at it with great aversion. ‘^It’s a very dry 
day,” said she. ‘‘May I go to the cab in my stock¬ 
ings, and not put on no shoes till I have my new 
ones?” 

The doctor pushed the little boot out of sight, 
under the chair, with his foot, and said: “I’ll 
carry you to the cab, and mother or the cabman 
will carry you to the shop across the pavement, 
and you shall never see that iron horror or that 
boot again!” 

As the doctor carried her across the hall, Gabri¬ 
elle put her arms round his neck, and kissed him 
on both his eyes. 

“Your eyes taste very salt!” she said. “But 
you are the best doctor in the world!” 


THE SUEEENDER OF LADY GEIZELL’ 


Geordie had found the world a rather draughty 
place since that March morning when his mother 
went out hunting and was brought back in a 
strange secret fashion, and he saw her face no 
more. 

“Your poor Ma’s met with a haccident, Master 
Geordie—poor lady sheVe broke her back and 
now she^s gone to ’Eaven.’’ 

So Nana explained things to him. New black 
clothes came from the tailor’s, and Geordie went 
with Nana to lay flowers upon his mother’s grave. 

At five years old discomfort is felt, rather than 
defined; Geordie was conscious of a difference, an 
uncomfortable difference in his surroundings, but 
by no means directly traced its cause to the loss 
of his mother. Nor was he actively miserable. It 
is true that he sometimes wondered why Nana so 
often omitted his bath in the morning, and why he 
was never dressed to go down in the evening; but 
in some respects he had quite a dissipated time. 
So many people asked him out to tea, and amuse¬ 
ment of which Nana distinctly approved, for she 
went too. 

Geordie regarded his father with immense ad¬ 
miration, he was so tall, and handsome, and jolly. 

134 


THE SUERENDER OF LADY GRIZELL 135 


But since that day when everything was altered, 
the Hon. Donald Cochran found less time than ever 
to devote to Geordie. It is true he did not go out 
hunting any more, hut he seemed always to he 
shut up in that hitherto almost unused room— 
called the ‘‘study,” sorting papers and interview¬ 
ing stout gentlemen, who wore aggressive watch- 
chains, and whose footsteps were much lighter 
than those of the hunting friends who used to come 
about the house. 

After a month of vague loneliness and discom¬ 
fort there came a change in Geordie’s fortunes. 
His aunt. Lady Grizell Fane, who had been abroad 
at the time of Mrs. Cochran’s death, appeared 
upon the scene. 

A tall woman, with keen grey eyes, a woman 
who observed much and said little—Lady Grizell 
after three days realized the exact position of 
affairs. On the fourth day she went back to the 
Towers, taking Geordie with her. 

Lady Grizell was one of those women, so often 
childless, in whom the maternal instinct is pas¬ 
sionately alive. The love of children was a re¬ 
ligion with her, and all the love she would have 
lavished on her own child had the fates bestowed 
one on her, she lavished upon Geordie. 

The world suddenly became a sunny, sheltered 
place for the lonely little boy. Baths were plenti¬ 
ful and nursery tableclothes were clean, as meals 
were regular. Above all, somebody wanted him, 
somebody took an interest in his doings, and a 
great warm human love ‘ ‘ enwheeled him round. ’ ’ 
A new experience this for Geordie—no one had 



136 CHILDKEN OF LAST CENTURY 


ever been actively unkind to him, his mother had 
looked after his creature comforts thoroughly. 
He was always well dressed and well tended, but 
she had never found his society particularly in¬ 
teresting, nor did she manifest any desire to see 
him often during the day. Though a tine strong 
child, he was too like the Cochrans to be pretty. 
Big nose, grey eyes, thin face, high cheek bones, 
and dogged mouth, may be well enough in a man, 
but in a child are apt to be all indefinite and out 
of proportion. No, Geordie was not a pretty child. 
Neither was he very clever; but he was honest 
and kind-hearted, and he worshipped those who 
were kind to him. Aunt Grizell most of all. 

Uncle Fane was a philanthropist, absorbed in 
blue books and statistics. When Parliament was 
sitting he went to London, while Aunt Grizell not 
infrequently preferred to remain with Geordie at 
the Towers. 

Geordie learned to ride with his aunt (his 
father had never been able to atford a pony for 
him, it takes such a lot of money to keep hunters), 
he did gardening with her, and with her he learned 
to read indifferently well. But he learned many 
things more important than these. 

He learned to be immensely proud of ‘‘the 
family,’’ to hold the reigning house in due respect 
certainly, but with reservations in favor of one 
Charles Edward, and his descendants, for whose 
sake “the family” had greatly dared and suffered. 
He learned that he must be courteous and deferent 
in his manners, true and just in all his dealings, 
and that he must control his temper, which, like 


THE SUHKENDER OF LADY GEIZELL 137 


that of the rest of the family, was inclined to be 
hasty. Moreover, he qnickly discovered that his 
annt was herself all she wonld have him be. To 
know that a thing grieved her was enough with 
Geordie to prevent its happening again, so they 
were very happy. 

His father came from time to time to spend a 
few days at the Towers, praised his improved ap¬ 
pearance, and his seat in the saddle, took him out 
shooting on occasions, and was always profuse in 
his thanks to his sister for her care of the boy. 

But this happy and peaceful state of things was 
not to last. A cloud came over the horizon. Lady 
Grizell went about with red eyes and a harrassed 
look, and Geordie found Uncle Fane regarding 
him with an expression, kindlier than of yore cer¬ 
tainly, but in which he discovered so large a pro¬ 
portion of pity that he resented it, without know¬ 
ing why. 

Then Lord Lochmaben, his father’s eldest 
brother, came to the Towers. During his visit, the 
child was always hearing scraps of conversation 
in which the words ‘‘madness,” “that woman,” 
and “social suicide” occurred with bewildering 
frequency. He felt that in some mysterious way 
these irrelevant remarks had some bearing on his 
own fortunes. Lord Lochmaben also regarded 
him with that strange pitying expression, and dur¬ 
ing his lordship’s visit. Aunt Grizell’s eyes were 
redder, and her manner more perturbed than ever. 

At last, one morning at the end of May—Geor¬ 
die will always hate the scent of the lilacs—Lady 


138 CHILDEEN OF LAST CENTURY 

Grizell called him from his play to come to her in 
the morning room. 

He came, running through the open French 
window, and when he reached his aunt’s chair she 
put her arm round him, saying huskily: ‘ ‘ Geordie 
dear! your father wants you at home, until Sep¬ 
tember—and then you are to go to school!’’ 

Lady Grizell made the announcement abruptly. 
To her surprise it was received in absolute silence. 
Geordie was, as his aunt herself would have said, 
‘‘utterly dumbfoundered.” To go to school some 
day was natural and proper—^but to go home. . . . 
“^^y does father want me now?” asked Geordie 
in a shaky voice. The Hon. Donald never betrayed 
any distress at parting from him when he left the 
Towers—^what could it mean? 

The child was very like “the family,” he was 
not at all demonstrative, and he “thought shame” 
to cry. 

He flung his arms round his aunt, holding her so 
tight that the buttons of his Norfolk jacket made 
deep dents on her cheek, and Lady Grizell could 
hear how painfully the little heart was thumping. 

There was silence for a minute between these 
two who understood each other so well; then 
Geordie asked: “When am I to go. Aunt Grizy?” 

“In a week—oh, what shall I do without you, 
my bonnie man?” 

“But I shall come to see you often, shan’t I? 
Papa won’t want me all the time, and you will ask 
him to let me come often, won’t you. Aunty?” 

Lady Grizell stroked his hair tenderly, but she 


THE SURRENDEE OF LADY GRIZELL 139 


could not deceive even a child, and she shook her 
head. 

‘‘I’ll ask him, my dear, you may he sure. But 
I fear he may not he able to grant my request. 
Unfortunately, there is a subject upon which your 
father and I cannot agree, and he is vexed with me, 
and naturally wants his son for himself.” 

“Is it that ‘suicide woman’ that is the sub¬ 
ject?” asked Geordie breathlessly. 

Lady Grizell gazed at him in thunderstruck 
amazement. “AVhat do you mean, child?” 

“Well, whenever I was out walking with Uncle 
Lochmaben and Uncle Fane, I kept hearing little 
bits about ‘that woman’ and ‘suicide’ and papa, 
so I thought it might be that. I didn’t listen, truly 
—I couldn’t help hearing, and I didn’t under¬ 
stand.” 

Lady Grizell put back the hair from the boy’s 
square forehead and looked into his honest grey 
eyes, then she spoke: 

“Geordie dear, there are always things in life 
that we cannot understand, and things we cannot 
help; what we must do is to be as brave and honest 
as we can, and leave the rest to God. Your dear 
father is very lonely and he has recently married 
a lady who will be your new mamma. You must 
try to be as good and courteous and obedient to 
her as you are to me—and Geordie, son! don’t 
forget me!” 

Here Lady Grizell broke down, and Geordie 
thought it no shame to cry too. 

That week was terribly short. At the end of it 
Geordie went out into the draughty world again, 


140 CHILDREN OF LAST CENTURY 


while Lady Grizell went about saying like her 
more famous namesake: ‘‘Oh, werena my heart 
lecht I wad deeL’ 

Geordie could never be induced to speak much 
about the three months that followed. During 
those three months Lady Grizell grew thin and 
pale. 

One morning she received a letter from the 
Hon. Donald in which he informed her that he and 
his wife had made arrangements for Geordie to 
go in September to an excellent school in the For¬ 
est of Dean where boys received hoard and educa¬ 
tion for the modest sum of twenty guineas a year. 

Lady Grizell gave a little cry, and stared at the 
letter in her hand as though it had been some 
horrible phantom. Then she flew downstairs and 
into her husband’s study, where he sat writing a 
report for the Society of Agriculture. 

“Augustus, read this! I am going to see Don¬ 
ald to-day, and tell him that I wiU receive his wife 
—I can’t let my pride stand in the way of that 
child any longer—read this!” and she thrust the 
letter under her husband’s aristocratic nose. 

Mr. Fane put on his glasses, read the letter, took 
them otf, folded them up and put them in the case 
—a methodical, deliberate man, Mr. Fane—then 
he said slowly: 

“Have you considered what people will say? 
Have you forgotten that everybody knows her 
most unpleasant story?” 

“I cannot help it. People must say what they 
please. I will not have Geordie go to such a school, 
even if I have to receive half the fallen women in 



THE SURBENDEE OF LADY GRIZELL 141 


London to prevent it. If Lochmaben never mar¬ 
ries, Geordie will be bead of onr bonse.” 

Lady Grizell spoke with passionate excitement. 
Mr. Fane felt that be bardly knew bis wife, always 
so gentle and dignified, in this woman with the pale 
face and blazing eyes. He expostulated forcibly 
and at his usual length. If be was somewhat less 
conscious of the dignity of the House of Cochran 
than was Lady Grizell, he was keenly alive to the 
dignity of the House of Fane. But all his exhor¬ 
tation, all his arguments were of no avail. He 
could not shake Lady Grizell’s determination; and 
the afternoon saw her speeding in the express 
toward the interview with her brother. 

The journey was not long, but the August day 
was hot. Lady Grizell felt faint and shaken when 
the omnibus (she had been too excited to wire for 
a cab) deposited her at her brother’s door. 

The parlormaid looked curiously at the tall lady 
who asked so pointedly for Mr. Cochran, and 
showed her into the study. No ladies ever called, 
and here was an undoubted lady—‘‘my lady” to 
boot—as the sharp girl discovered on reading the 
card. 

She carried the card to her master in the gar¬ 
den, where he was sitting with his wife. He flushed 
as he read it, and tossed it to the woman beside 
him, exclaiming: “Grizie, by Jove!—can she be 
coming round?” 

The woman caught the card, reading the name 
aloud in an eager, excited voice, then said, a little 
bitterly: “She only asks for you.^^ 

“She wouldn’t come here to insult you. I know 


142 CHILDEEN OF LAST CENTURY 


Grizie. lUs something about the boy, and she 
wants to be friends. You wait here till I send for 
you. ’ ^ 

He strode across the lawn, and entered the 
study by the open French window. 

^^Now this is really good of you, Grizie; Geordie 
will be in raptures—iUs kind and friendly!’’ 

Lady Grizell was pale, and the cheek she turned 
to his kiss was very cold. She clasped her hands 
to stay their trembling and began in a low voice: 

‘^Donald! you said that if I would receive Mrs. 
Cochran-” 

Nelly, you mean!” interrupted the Hon. 
Donald. 

‘‘If I would receive your wife—you would let 
me keep Geordie. If I promise to ask you both to 
the Towers—twice every year—will you let me 
have him, instead of sending him to that horrible 
school—will you, Donald? I’ll educate him, he 
shall cost you nothing—I have a little money, you 
know, and Augustus is very generous to me—^will 
you let him come to me ? ’ ’ 

Donald looked rather shamefaced as he mut¬ 
tered : “Isn’t it rather like selling the little chap ? ’ ’ 

“But it’s selling him into happiness, Donald: 
he is such a dear lad, and he loves me, and . . . 
it isn’t very easy for me!” 

There was silence for two minutes. Ladv 

%/ 

Grizell’s heart thumped in her ears. 

Overhead there was a sudden patter of little 
feet, and Lady Grizell sank upon her knees, sob¬ 
bing: “Oh, give him to me, Donald, for God’s 
sake, give him to me! I cannot bear it! ” 




THE SUKRENDER OF LADY GRIZELE 143 


Donald’s eyes were red as he raised his sister 
and gently put her in an easy chair. He patted 
her shonlder soothingly, and his voice trembled as 
he said: ‘‘Look here, Grizie! yon shall have the 
hoy. There shall be no bargain between ns; I 
never meant to send him to that beastly school. I 
tried it on to fetch yon—as it has—bnt I can’t 
play the game so low down as that—I don’t set np 
for a model parent. I know yon’ll bring him np 
better than we shonld. Yon can leave this honse 
withont meeting my wife if yon prefer it, and I’ll 
send Geordie to yon to-morrow. Bnt, if yon like 
to do a kind and generons thing to a woman who 
has known little bnt nnkindness, and shame, and 
sorrow all her life, and who is a good and loyal 
wife to me, then I say, God bless yon, Grizell 
Cochran, for yon are a good woman!” 

Donald was not given to the making of long 
speeches. His voice broke many times in the 
conrse of this, and the tears were mnning down 
Lady Grizell’s pale cheeks. She held ont her 
hands to him, saying simply, “Take me to Her!” 
and the two tall fignres went ont across the grass 
together. 


A CLEAN PACK 


Basil sat alone in the schoolroom, althongh it 
was past bedtime. Nurse, like everybody else, had 
apparently forgotten him, but Basil, absorbed in 
his own thoughts, sat on by the dying fire. There 
were always fires in his grandfather’s house when¬ 
ever it was in the least cold, and that August it 
was very cold, so cold that grandfather, getting 
wet through out shooting, somehow got a chill, 
was ill only three days, and now was lying dead 
in the big bedroom over Basil’s head. So Basil 
had a good deal to think about. It was not that 
death was new to him—from his earliest infancy 
it had been impressed upon him that his father 
was dead—^but that he could not by any stretch 
of fancy imagine what life would be without 
grandfather—grandfather who was lying with his 
beautiful hands crossed on his breast in that long, 
light-colored wooden box upstairs. 

Basil resented the fact that grandfather’s coffin 
should be made of light wood. It seemed incon¬ 
gruous and impertinent, somehow, that anything 
used by grandfather should be otherwise than old 
—old and rich-colored and seemly; and the child 
found himself wondering whether grandfather was 

annoyed. There were many things in that bed- 

144 


A CLEAN PACK 


145 


room calcnlated to annoy him, Basil reflected. In 
the first place, when mother took him in that 
afternoon that he might lay the asters gathered 
in his own garden at his grandfather’s feet, he re¬ 
marked that all the blinds were down, and grand¬ 
father wonld have hated that, and the windows 
were shnt, and there was a heavy scent of hot¬ 
house flowers. fear he’s very uncomfortable,” 
whispered Basil to himself. ‘‘He’ll be glad to get 
to heaven out of that stuffy room.” For grand¬ 
father had loved air as much as he liked fires. 

The horizon of Basil’s experience was somewhat 
limited. It consisted of mother and grandfather, 
and of ‘ ‘ other grandfather, ’ ’ who lived at Altring- 
ham in Cheshire, and was mother’s father. 

Every year Basil and mother went to Altring- 
ham for six weeks, and life there was so utterly 
different from what it was with grandfather that 
Basil never ceased to puzzle over it and to wonder 
why mother always cried when she came away, 
and why ‘‘other grandfather’’ always said: “Yon 
moost bear with the old heathen, Sophia; he’s been 
generous enough as regards mooney, and, remem¬ 
ber, you can be in the world but not of it.” 

There were aunts, too, at Altringham, who made 
a great fuss of Basil for about three days, and then 
seemed to find him greatly in the way; while ‘ ‘ other 
grandfather” had a most embarrassing way of 
suddenly demanding: “Well, yoong mon, and 
how’s the ciphering?” 

Basil loved his mother very dearly, but he could 
have wished that she took life a little less sadly. 
A gentle melancholy characterized her every 


146 CHILDEEN OF LAST CENTUEY 

thought, and the child felt rather than understood 
that her mental attitude toward her father-in-law 
was that of a deprecating disapproval. Grand¬ 
father felt it too, for only a week before Basil had 
heard him say to one of the gentlemen who were 
tramping the stubble with him: ‘‘We shall never 
understand each other, my poor little daughter 
and I, though weVe lived together seven years. 
She’s as good as gold, and I don’t think I’m par¬ 
ticularly difficiley but there it is—^we can never get 
the same focus for anything. ’ ’ Basil was walking 
just behind with the keeper, who blushed up to the 
roots of his hair as he called out: “I’m here, you 
know, grandfather.” 

Grandfather pulled up short and turned to look 
at Basil. Then he gave a queer little laugh. 
“There’s not much Manchester about the boy,” he 
said, and tramped on. 

They all went to London from November till the 
end of March, and there grandfather generally 
dined at his club and played whist afterward, 
while Basil’s mother had supper with him or had 
friends of her own to dinner, just as she liked. 
Grandfather could not get on without his rubber. 
Even in the country, three times a week three 
broughams drove solemnly up the drive, and three 
old gentlemen descended therefrom to dine with 
grandfather and play whist afterwards. 

In London on fine nights he walked to his club, 
and Basil used to watch him go from the nursery 
window just as he was going to bed; and at the 
lamp grandfather always stopped and looked up 
at the curly head pressed against the pane, then 


A CLEAN PACK 


147 


lie wonld lift his hat with a grand sweep and walk 
on, while Basil hngged himself with the delighted 
conviction that his grandfather was the very hand¬ 
somest old gentleman in the whole world. And 
sometimes grandfather wonld crush his hat over 
his eyes, while a spasm of pain crossed his clean- 
shaven, stately old face, and he’d whisper to him¬ 
self: ^^My God! how like he is to my poor boy.’’ 
«•••••• 

Among the very first things that Basil ever 
learned were the different ‘‘suits” in cards. 
Grandfather taught him and gave him a shilling 
for every suit as he knew them and the values of 
the cards, as in whist. Then he taught Basil 
whist, playing double-dummy, and explaining as 
they went along: “I wish you, Basil, to play whist 
as a gentleman should, carefully and mth due 
consideration, with the intelligence and respect 
that the game deserves, not like a counter jumper 
for penny points.” 

It must be confessed that Basil took to this in¬ 
struction much more kindly than to that included 
under the heading of “ciphering,” or even of 
reading and spelling. At six he could play a ‘ ‘ fair 
hand,” at which he was somewhat puffed up, the 
only drawback being that mother did not seem to 
take any interest in his achievements. She never 
played herself, though grandfather impressed 
upon her that she was preparing for herself an 
unhappy old. age; in fact, she did not seem to like 
cards at all. 

One very wet Sunday grandfather had arranged 
four “hands” on the library table, and was pro- 


148 CHILDREN OF LAST CENTURY 

ceeding to play a game out of ‘‘Cavendish’’ for 
Basil’s instruction, when his mother suddenly 
came into the room. She gave one quick glance at 
the table with the cards, and came forward and 
stood beside it, saying very quietly: “I do not 
wish Basil to play cards on Sunday.” 

Grandfather had risen to his feet as Basil’s 
mother entered the room. It would never have 
occurred to him to sit down while his daughter-in- 
law was standing; he swept the cards into a little 
heap with one swift movement of his beautiful 
white old hands, and said, with a grave little bow: 

“I apologize, my dear. I had for the moment 
forgotten your—er—convictions on this question. 
What may we play at?—for I’ve made a bet with 
myself to keep Basil amused till teatime, and I 
don’t want to lose it.” Then, turning to Basil— 
who, conscious of the thunder in the air, felt very 
unhappy indeed: “It’s not your fault, my boy. 
You’ve not been naughty. It’s I who was forget¬ 
ful. ’ ’ 

Basil’s mother looked from one to the other a 
little piteously. She had no weapons wherewith to 
meet her father-in-law’s smiling courtesy. She 
might have liked him better had he sometimes 
been rude. “Other grandfather” was not uni¬ 
formly courteous. 

On Sunday mornings they all three went to 
church together, and grandfather sat under the 
big carved tablet which set forth how Basil’s 
father had died at Ulundi, “aged twenty-nine.” 
Grandfather always carried his daughter-in-law’s 
prayer book for her up to the house, discussed the 



A CLEAN PACK 149 

sermon with her, and was, as he himself would 
have put it, ‘‘vastly agreeable/’ 

• •••••• 

A piece of coal fell out on the hearth and startled 
Basil out of his reverie. He had evidently come 
to some decision, for he nodded his head emphati¬ 
cally, muttering: “I’d better do it. I’m sure he’ll 
be bored if I don’t, and I mayn’t get another 
chance. ’ ’ 

The room was quite dark but for the flickering 
firelight, which had brightened since that big piece 
of coal fell apart. Basil went to his own special 
cupboard and took from it a pack of cards, which 
his grandfather had given him only last week. 
Grandfather never used the same pack on two 
consecutive evenings, and gave one to Basil nearly 
every week with the instruction: “Never use dirty 
cards, even to build castles with.” The child had 
never played with the ones he held in his hands, 
and his big grey eyes filled with tears as he 
wrapped them up in a leaf torn out of his copy¬ 
book. Then, laboriously, for Basil was no scribe, 
he wrote on the packet, a proceeding which took 
a considerable time. He gave a sob as he kissed 
his message, but there was no time to be lost. 
Slipping off his shoes, he opened the door very 
softly, raced across the hall and up the stairs. 
The staircase was quite dark, for Chapman had 
forgotten to light the lamps. 

When he reached his grandfather’s bedroom 
door he paused with his hand on the handle. His 
heart was pounding in his ears, and for a full 
minute he could not hear whether all was quiet in 


150 CHILDEEN OF LAST CENTUEY 

the room or not. Opening the door very softly, 
and as softly shutting it after him, he ran across 
the room and pulled up the blind of the big win¬ 
dow that faced the bed. The moon came out from 
behind a bank of cloud, as if to aid him in his 
task, and shone full on that strange last couch at 
the foot of the bed in which grandfather lay so 
still under his coverlet of flowers. Basil pushed 
at the heavy window, but it was fastened far out 
of his reach, and he could not let in the fresh night 
air that grandfather loved. As his eyes grew ac^ 
customed to the lighter room, he came and stood 
by that light-colored box that he hated so, lifted 
the white cloth covering his grandfather ^s face, 
and looked at him long and earnestly. 

Basil had very vague notions as to what heaven 
was like; but, on reviewing all that he had heard 
of it, he came to the conclusion that if there was 
no whist there grandfather would be dull, and he 
had often heard him say: ‘‘There^s only one thing 
that I dread, and that’s boredom.” So Basil had 
decided that at all costs such a contingency must 
be avoided, and grandfather must teach the angels 
to play whist. ‘‘They can p’obably make more 
cards when they’ve seen them,” said Basil to him¬ 
self, and pushed his little packet underneath the 
folded hands, kissed them, and turned to go as 
softly as he had come. 

But the door opened at that moment, and his 
mother, candle in hand, stood on the threshold 
gazing at the little figure standing full in the 
strand of moonlight thrown across the carpet. 


A CLEAN PACK 151 

‘‘What are yon doing here, Basil?’’ she asked 
breathlessly. 

“I came to give something to grandfather. Oh, 
don’t take it away from him!” 

The passionate distress in the child’s voice 
moved her. 

“I will take nothing away from him that yon 
wish to give him. Bntwhatisit? Is it flowers?” 

“No, mother, it is not flowers.” 

She came into the room, closing the door after 
her. 

“I mnst see what it is,” she said very gently. 

Basil stood where he was as though turned to 
stone. Would she take it away—or would she put 
it back? He could not see her, for he stood with 
his back to her, and seemed incapable of turning 
round. His mother, noting the disarrangement of 
the flowers, drew out the little packet, and, holding 
her candle close, read the inscription in the large 
uncertain writing: 

“Dear Gratofather, 

“I’m sory it’s not a cleane pak, but I don’t know 
where they are. 


“Your loving boy, 


“Basil.” 


AN IRON SEAT 


He sat at one end of the seat, she at the other, 
and the seat was on the cliffs overlooking the sea 
at Wolsnth on the Suffolk coast. They say that if 
your eyes were strong enough you could see the 
coast of Holland; but even with telescopes no one 
has yet succeeded in doing that. 

At first he hardly noticed her—she was so small 
and still and read her book so assiduously; but she 
could have passed a searching examination as to 
his appearance, for she had studied it carefully. 
She would have told you that he was tall, and thin, 
and dark, and rather old’’; that his beard was 
grey, though his hair was black and decidedly thin 
on the top; that his spectacles had gold rims and 
the eyes behind them were very kind; that his 
manner struck you as extremely grave and decor¬ 
ous : what impressed her most, however, was that 
big, dull, paper-covered book he was always read¬ 
ing. She was sure it was dull, for she couldn’t 
read a word of it; it was in German—she knew 
that much, and she had tried to pronounce the 
title to herself in bed at night, but never came 
near it at all, for it looked like this: ‘‘Mendelejeef 
Chemie, ’ ’ and it would take a very sharp little girl 
of ten to make much out of that. 

152 


AN lEON SEAT 


153 


No one ever came to sit between them on that 
iron seat; it was far from the esplanade, and over¬ 
looked a lonely part of the beach where there were 
no ‘^entertainments.’’ When they had sat there 
for several days, the man who read “Mendelejeef 
Chemie” looked np suddenly to find that his com¬ 
panion at the other end of the seat was wiping her 
eyes with the absnrdest little red-bordered hand¬ 
kerchief. She held her book in one hand—a some¬ 
what large and heavy book for such a little hand— 
and wiped her eyes with the other, and yet the man 
was sure that she was not unhappy, for her thin 
brown cheeks were flushed, and though her mouth 
was tremulous it wore a proud and happy smile. 
He was devoured by curiosity. WEat book could 
it be that had the power to move a little girl in so 
complex a fashion! 

He shifted down the seat toward her; but she 
was so absorbed in what she was reading that she 
never looked his way, and he found that the book 
she held in her hand was “From London to Lady¬ 
smith via Pretoria.” 

Suddenly she looked round and saw him. Quite 
simply and naturally she offered him a share of 
her book, saying enthusiastically: 

“Isn’t it splendid! And my daddie was there 
through it all.” 

“Are you ready!” she said presently. 

The man nodded, and she turned the page. 
Then, with tears still shining on her cheeks, she 
began to read aloud: 


154 CHILDEEN OF LAST CENTUEY 


‘^It was a procession of lions. And presently, wlien 
the two battalions of Devons met—both full of honors— 
and old friends breaking from the ranks gripped each 
other’s hands and shouted, everyone was carried away, 
and I waved my feathered hat and cheered and cheered 
until I could cheer no longer for joy that I had lived to 
see the day. . . 

Here she stopped, and, turning her radiant face 
to the man beside her, cried: 

‘‘Aren’t yon glad yon weren’t born in any other 
centnry? Isn’t it a good thing to be in the world 
when there are snch splendid things happening?” 

The man smiled down at her, saying heartily: 
“It is, indeed!” And straightway they were 
friends. 

Ever afterward they sat in the middle of the 
seat qnite close together, and althongh Winny— 
that was her name—continned to read “From 
London to Ladysmith,” she read it alond, and 
“Mendelejeef” lay neglected on the far end of 
the seat. 

They talked a great deal about the war, and the 
man found that this little girl knew all about it, 
from the battle of Glencoe to the relief of Lady- 
brand, the name and whereabouts of every regi¬ 
ment, the result of every single engagement big 
or little. 

He learned that last year her father had been 
home on long leave and had brought them all to 
Wolsuth, “and oh! we did have a lovely time!” 
but that this year mother couldn’t afford it, “War 
risks are so expensive, you know,” that she— 
Winny—^had been silly enough to get influenza in 




AN lEON SEAT 155 

July, and an aunt had consented to let her come 
with her own family. 

‘‘Mother and the boys—therethree boys 
younger than me: I^m the eldest—^have got to stay 
at home this year. I’m so sorry, though I’d far 
rather be with them, only I’ve got to get strong. 
Daddie said so in his last letter.” 

The man gathered that her aunt and cousins 
were not altogether simpatica, though Winny 
never said so; still, every day she came and sat on 
the iron seat after her bath and talked of her book, 
for which she had unbounded admiration, and of 
her own small affairs. Being an excellent listener, 
the man found himself well amused, for he was 
one of those people who keep the best part of 
themselves for old friends and little children, and 
are always quite misunderstood and unappreci¬ 
ated by casual acquaintances, which lack of appre¬ 
ciation doesn’t trouble them in the least. 

He learned that one of the “boys” was going 
into the Royal Engineers, “because there you can 
live on your pay from the first if you’re careful,” 
another into the Artillery, “and we may spare one 
for the Navy.” 

“And what are you going to be?” he asked one 
day, after they had exhaustively discussed the 
futures of the three boys. 

“Oh, I’m going to be a mother,” she replied, 
with immense decision. “You see, you have such 
a lot of people to take care of you and love you, 
if you’re a mother.” 

“But you have to take care of them first, haven’t 
you ? ” he asked. 


156 CHILDREN OF LAST CENTURY 

‘ ‘ Oh, yes, just at first—but afterwards- You 

should just see the care we take of mother, daddie 
and all/’ 

The man looked out to sea and tried to picture 
the eager little figure at his side as a large com¬ 
fortable mother of many children. He tried so 
hard that he forgot to answer her last remark, 
and she asked anxiously: 

‘‘Don’t you think it’s a good thing to be?” 

‘‘Excellent!” he answered heartily. “It is one 
of the oldest and most honorable professions; 
mothers are people we can in nowise ever do with¬ 
out. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ That’s what I thought, ’ ’ said Winny, in a satis¬ 
fied voice, “and that’s what I’m going to be; I 
made up my mind years ago. ’ ’ 

• •*•••• 

One day as he arrived at their trysting place he 
discovered that Winny was crying in right down 
earnest, and not for joy that Ladysmith had been 
relieved. The little red-bordered handkerchief 
was screwed up into a tight, wet ball, and the 
small figure in blue serge looked very woebegone 
indeed. She had taken off her fisherman’s cowl, 
and cast it on the ground beside her; and when 
she saw her friend, instead of waving him a gay 
welcome as he came up, she shook her curly brown 
hair round her cheeks to hide her face. 

All this was so unlike Winny that the man im¬ 
mediately reflected with dismay that he had not 
read the morning paper at all carefully. It was 
possible that some disaster had happened to her 



AN IKON SEAT 157 

father. In those days we were apt to trace aU 
sorrows to South Africa. 

‘‘No bad news, I hope?” he said in rather a 
hesitating way as he came up. 

Winny shook her head till her face was entirely 
hidden by her hair; but she did not answer other¬ 
wise. 

“You may as well tell me what’s the matter,” 
said the man; “it may not be past mending.” 

Now there was something about this man that 
inspired confidence; moreover, he offered Winny 
his own handkerchief, which was large and clean 
and comforting. So she accepted it, mopped her 
wet face, shook back her hair, and began: “I 
don’t bathe with the others, you know.” Here she 
paused so long that the man said, “Well?” though 
it was against his principles to interrupt any¬ 
body’s narrative. 

“I bathe at Herrington’s machines,” she con¬ 
tinued, “where we always bathed last year—dad- 
die too—right far away at the end of the beach. 
My aunt and cousins bathe where the niggers are, 
and the concert, and such crowds of people you 
have to wait ever so long for a machine. So I 
asked if I might bathe with Herrington like last 
year, for he’s such a nice man, and he takes such 
care of me, and daddie liked him awfully. There’s 
been Herringtons in Wolsuth since 1400!” 

Winny paused after this announcement, evi¬ 
dently expecting comment of some sort. 

“That’s a long record,” said the man, rising to 
the occasion. “And what was Mr. Herrington 
before he took to keeping bathing-machines?” 


158 CHILDEEN OF LAST CENTURY 

‘‘He was mate on a schooner, and one of his 
sons is a captain of a merchantman; he^s raised 
himself tremendously. Then there’s two sons who 
help Herrington, and are fishermen in winter; 
and Mrs. Herrington does washing. Oh, they’re 
such a nice family!” she exclaimed ecstatically. 

The man looked out to sea, wondering what on 
earth all this had to do with her tears. But he 
was a patient person; so he waited. 

“I go home to-morrow,” she continued, “and 
IVe had one of Herrington’s bathing-machines 
ever since I came—going on for three weeks now— 
and he’s taken me out in the boat and let me dive 
and swim, and been so kind and jolly, and to-day, 
when I asked my aunt for the money to pay him— 
it’s fourpence each time—she wouldn’t give it me, 
and laughed and said that it wouldn’t hurt him 
to take me for nothing this year, he made such a 
lot out of us last. Think of it!” she exclaimed, 
clasping and unclasping her hands. “It’s his liv¬ 
ing! It’s like taking a leg of mutton from a 
butcher for nothing. I told auntie that mother 
would send it to her if she’d let me have it, but 
she only laughed and said it was nonsense. Of 
course mother will send it to him, but that’s not 
the same. He ’ll have to think me shabby and un¬ 
grateful for nearly three days, for I can’t go and 
say good-bye to him when I’ve nothing to give 
him. I’ve only sixpence. Isn’t it dreadful?” 

The man reflected that there were people who 
had no objection to accepting legs of mutton from 
their butchers, who rather resented the fact that 
these same butchers ventured on occasion to send 



AN lEON SEAT 


159 


in a bill; but evidently tbe soldier who had been 
shut np in Ladysmith bronght np his children with 
a different view of their obligations. He was very 
sorry for Winny, bnt he didnT dare to offer her 
the money. There are people to whom one cannot 
offer money. 

‘‘Can’t yon tell Herrington how yon are 
placed?” he feebly suggested. 

“Of course not,” the child answered scornfully. 
“He’d say I was ‘more’n welcome’ to my baths, 
and that it didn’t matter a pin. It’s just because 
I know he’d gladly give me my baths that it hurts 
so. It’s his living/^ she repeated. As she spoke 
she stood up and stuffed the little wet handker¬ 
chief into her pocket. 

The man was sitting with his hands thrust deep 
into his own, as men will when perplexed or 
troubled. Winny stood with her back to him, 
gazing sorrowfully at Herrington’s bathing-ma- * 
chines on the distant beach. 

The little pocket gaped, and the man succumbed 
to temptation. Very gingerly he dropped a crown 
piece into the opening which displayed the 
drenched handkerchief. Then he stood up. “I’m 
going by the afternoon train,” he said, “so I fear 
I must say good-bye. But I hope we shall meet 
again some day.” 

“I hope so,” sighed Winny, as she held up her 
face to be kissed, and wondered why he seemed in 
such a hurry and never even asked her to walk 
back with him. 


LEON 

I would have our children taught, so far as teaching can 
go, to love and admire France, that glorious nation which 
has done so much and suffered so much for humanity.— 
William Archer, 1898. 

We did not believe it possible that a boy of nine 
could wear high-buttoned boots, a pale blue sash, 
and long hair like a girPs, and yet possess a char¬ 
acter unaffected by these deplorable externals. 
That, in addition to this, he should be French, 
speaking that ^‘nimini piminV^ language with per¬ 
fect ease; and, in further proof of his mental 
slipperiness, speak English almost equally well— 
but for a curious roll and rumble of the letter ‘‘r’’ 
in the back of the throat—was another serious 
stumbling-block in the way of our liking. It was 
not natural. Had he been puny, or sallow, or in 
any way physically ‘‘Frenchy’’ as we supposed it, 
we should have found him less bewildering. But 
he was sturdy, ruddy, and fair-haired; tall for his 
age, and of a franl^ cheerfulness that was rather 
engaging. Absolutely unashamed of his inferior 
nationality, unconscious, seemingly, of those elon¬ 
gated buttoned boots, he would shake back his 
tawny hair and look you squarely in the face with 

big blue eyes that smiled. He didn’t look a 

160 


LEON 


161 


‘‘Molly/’ somehow, in spite of his hair; hut we 
children were convinced that he “must be one, 
really,” and that what the twins called his “false 
French smile” was a sort of cloak for the innate 
cowardice of his disposition. 

What induced Aunt Alice to marry a French 
officer, we could not think! That she and her 
husband were what mother called ‘ ‘ devoted to one 
another” seemed to us an insufficient explanation. 
Not only did she marry this foreigner and desert 
her native land, but she became a Roman Catholic 
—nurse minded this most and called her a Papist— 
and she seemed perfectly happy in her exile. She 
was supposed to be a very beautiful person, but 
what most impressed us during her rare and brief 
visits was the quality and quantity of the sweets 
she brought us; sweets in gorgeous boxes which 
bore the mystic device Gouache, France was, we 
were convinced, a poor sort of place, but exception 
must be made in favor of her sweets. 

In reflecting upon our general attitude toward 
France and the French at this time, I am re¬ 
minded of the man who scornfully held up to ridi¬ 
cule a country so far left to itself as to speak of 
bread as “Pain.” 

“But,” suggested a more tolerant friend, “we 
call it bread.” 

“Ah! it is bread, you see.” 

But to return to Leon. His father’s regiment 
had been ordered to some place in Africa, where 
they could not take Leon, and as Aunt Alice was 


162 CHILDREN OF LAST CENTURY 

going with her husband for at least six months, 
Leon was sent to ns. 

Eric and I decided that it was a bore. Jennie, 
who is queer and contradictory at times, said 
nothing. She adores Aunt Alice. The twins, who 
had just been doing the Battle of Waterloo in his¬ 
tory, and were rampantly patriotic, expressed 
grave doubts as to whether it was quite loyal to 
Queen Victoria to receive Leon at all. 

‘‘No one likes to go about all day with a mounte¬ 
bank!^’ grumbled Eric. 

“If only he’d had fewer clothes!” I sighed. 

But even the most sanguine destroyer of gar¬ 
ments could hardly hope that Leon would wear out 
the quantity of which he was possessed in less than 
six months. 

The twins and Leon came toward us from the 
tennis lawn; the twins red and triumphant, Leon 
red and evidently perturbed. Jennie followed, 
lingering in the rear; she is lame, not a cripple, 
you know, but noticeably lame. 

“England won!” shouted the twins. They al¬ 
ways seemed to speak in a sort of chorus. 

Leon sat down on the bank beside us and shook 
his hair back from his face. He evidently intended 
to appeal to Eric about something; but just as he 
opened his mouth to speak, he noticed Jennie. 

“Come, my cousin,” he called, patting the bank 
beside him; “we shall have good fortune another 
time!” 

‘‘England won!’’ chanted the twins again. “We 
always do! ” 

“That is not so!” cried Leon angrily. “Why 


LEON 


163 


do yon speak to despise my conntry*? If yon were 
in France, my gnest, we speak not forever of 
Hastings ? ’ ’ 

‘‘Oh, that was ages ago,’’ said Eric jndicially; 
“bnt yon were not fairly matched.” 

“Leon had me, yon see,” pnt in Jennie. 

“Not so, my consin, yonr play was beantifnl,” 
said Leon, and he took her hand and patted it. 
He had qneer affectionate ways, and never seemed 
to mind showing that he liked people. “We beat 
them next time.” 

“I wonder what makes Leon so chnmmy with 
Jennie?” I asked Eric half an honr later, as we 
rested after a hot “single.” “Do yon think it’s 
becanse she’s the only one of ns that conldn’t lick 
him ? ’ ’ 

Eric raised himself on his elbows and stared 
at me. 

“Well, of all the chnckle-headed ideas I ever 
heard! Eeally, for downright wrong-headedness, 
give me the average girl. Can’t yon see, yon 
silly, that it’s becanse she’s lame, and the little 
beggar’s sorry for her? He’s a good-hearted kid 
if he is Frenchy, and as to licking, jnst yon 
wait-” 

I felt very mnch snnbbed and rather aggrieved, 
for only that afternoon Eric had grumbled about 
Leon’s clothes and called him a “mountebank.” 
Boys seem to keep things separate somehow, in a 
curious way. 

One day Jennie and Leon had been sent to the 
Home Farm to fetch eggs. It was really the twins ’ 



164 CHILDKEN OF LAST CENTURY 


turn, but they bid so tbat they shouldnT have to 
go, for it was a very hot afternoon. Eric and I 
went for a stroll through the fields in the same 
direction to look at a nest of young yellow-ham¬ 
mers in the big paddock. There’s a sort of hill in 
the big paddock, and we saw Jennie and Leon 
coming down the cart road from the farm; they 
went by the road because Jennie hates climbing 
gates—it hurts her. Leon was carrying the eggs 
and they came very slowly, because Jennie was 
tired. Toward them came one, Fred Oram, a vil¬ 
lage boy, not a nice boy at all. He hates us be¬ 
cause the head groom gave him a thrashing when 
he caught him throwing stones at the thorough¬ 
breds. 

Fred Oram began to limp like Jennie, and called 
out: 

’Ullo, Frenchy! Shall I plait your ’air for 
ya?” 

Eric, who happened to be at home because two- 
thirds of his school got measles and mother was 
nervous, began to run, and I ran after him; but 
we were a good way from the gate, and the hedge 
is too thick to get through. We ran alongside of 
it, and heard Leon say in his funny, stilted Eng¬ 
lish: 

‘‘Please hold the eggs, my cousin!” Then, evi¬ 
dently to Fred: “How dare you to mock at my 
cousin and insult me?” 

As we reached the gate Eric pulled me back. 

“Let the kid alone!” he whispered. “He’s not 
afraid.” 


LEON 165 

It reminded me of old King Edward, and ‘‘Let 
the boy win his spurs.’’ 

None of the three saw us. Jennie was standing 
on the grass at the side, looking very red and 
excited; Fred Oram was pulling Leon’s hair and 
dancing round him, making derisive remarks. 
Leon wrenched his head away, and with a bound 
stood in the middle of the road, facing his enemy. 
In spite of his buttony boots—in spite of his blue 
sash and his long hair—Fred seemed rather afraid 
of him, for Leon looked, and was, furious. 

For about half a minute they stood looking at 
each other. Leon shouted, “Lache! Lache! ’ ’—he 
forgot to speak English, he was so excited—then, 
“En garde!”—and there seemed a thousand rs 
in that garde —and he sprang on Fred, who went 
down like a ninepin. 

Eric vaulted the gate, yelling excitedly, “By 
Jove! the kid can box.” 

Jennie laid down the eggs on the grass, and hid 
her face in her hands. But she looked through her 
fingers. I saw her. 

In another minute Fred was upon his feet. He 
was bigger than any of us—even Eric. Leon went 
at him again, calling out w^hat we supposed to be 
battle-cries in French, and I do believe that the 
French alarmed Fred as much as the pommelling. 
Anyway, down he went again, with Leon on the 
top of him. 

‘ ‘ Time! ’ ’ shouted Eric, picking upon Leon and 
wiping his face, which was hard to see, for his nose 
was bleeding and one eye was swollen. 


166 CHILDREN OF LAST CENTURY 


But Fred got up and began to walk away, re¬ 
marking with surly dignity: 

don’t care for to fight with no French tiger- 
cats.” 

Leon broke away from Eric, and ran after his 
late foe. Fred stopped and took up a defensive 
attitude, but Leon went up with his grubby right 
hand held out. 

Shake!” he cried. ‘‘We have foughten; it is 
over. Shake with me ? ’ ’ And Fred shook. ‘ ‘ That 
was quite English?” asked Leon anxiously, as he 
came back to be cleaned. 

Eric looked at him very kindly. “It was all 
right,” he said; and Leon squared his shoulders 
with modest pride. 

“I never saw such a nose to bleed!” exclaimed 
Eric, ten minutes later, as the last available hand¬ 
kerchief had been reduced to a crimson, pulpy ball. 
“There’s one sash done for, anyway. I suppose 
the suit ’ll wash, which is a pity. ’ ’ 

On the way home Eric carried the eggs, and 
Jennie walked hand in hand with Leon. They 
rather lagged behind, and presently I heard Jen¬ 
nie whisper—I have very sharp ears: 

“Leon, am I so very lame?” 

“My little cousin, I do not see you lame at all, 
except when you are fatigued; and we all of us 
walk badly when we are fatigued; ’ ’ and he stopped 
and kissed Jennie on both cheeks. 

I had often heard that the French say what is 
pleasant at the expense of what is true; but just 
then I wondered if it was always such a bad thing, 
for when I turned and looked at my little sister 


LEON 167 

her face was perfectly radiant, and she was hardly 
limping at all. 

‘‘Ill tell yon what it is,’’ said Eric, when Leon 
had been carried off by the authorities to have 
keys put down his back, his eye bathed, and to be 
generally cleaned up; and we were all five sitting 
in solemn conclave on the largest wheelbarrow— 
the twins had joined us, much excited by recent 
events—‘‘I’ll tell you what it is: you kids must 
drop that Waterloo business, and we must none 
of us mind his queer clothes any more. He’s a 
ripping good sort, and, after all, he can’t help 
being French!” 

“And he wouldn’t help it if he could!” cried 
Jennie. “France is a great country.” 

For a wonder nobody contradicted her. We 
were all busy readjusting preconceived ideas. 


THE OLD EELIGIOH 


God is above the sphere of our esteem, 

And is the best known, not defining Him. 

Robert Herick. 

It’s a far cry from a busy street in Leith to a 
village in the loveliest part of wooded Gloucester¬ 
shire; but, at eight years old, vicissitude is borne 
with a calm philosophy seemingly unattainable in 
later years, and Maggie McClachlan expressed no 
great wonder at her new environment, rather to 
the disappointment of her worthy aunt, who was 
fully aware of her own extreme good nature and 
condescension in ‘Haking the lassie for the whole 
summer, and paying her fare both ways.” 

Measles followed by an obstinate ‘‘hoast,” was 
the commonplace cause that transported Maggie 
to this strange new country. The long, roaring, 
whirring, bewildering journey—in which she was 
passed by a kindly official into the varied guar¬ 
dianship of such passengers as were going her 
way—left her dazed and puzzled, but not unhappy. 
Her childless uncle and aunt were kind, and there 
were the woods. 

The first thing that struck Maggie about these 

woods was the singular absence of bits of paper; 

168 


THE OLD EELIGION 


169 


neither did she come upon any broken bottles in 
the course of her wanderings. This lack seemed 
even more wonderful to her than the presence of 
innumerable foxgloves. She had spent an occa¬ 
sional afternoon in the woods at Aherdour, but 
always in a crowd. Here the spaciousness and 
peace attracted her, even as it filled her little soul 
with an awe that was a thing apart from fear. If 
in after years Maggie should read what Mr. Henry 
James has written of ‘‘a great, good Place,’’ she 
will understand it better than most people. 

For the first week she met with no adventures. 
Her aunt, a bustling, busy, thrifty Scotswoman, 
worked a great deal up at the big house; her uncle 
assisted in the manufacture of the ‘‘superfine 
broadcloth” for which the little village used to be 
famous, and Maggie was left to do much as she 
pleased. Her cough left her, and the color came 
into her pale cheeks, and the sun set his mark 
upon the bridge of her nose in the shape of a band 
of the dearest little brown freckles. 

Hitherto she had not gone far into the woods, 
but with returning health came a spirit of adven¬ 
ture. One afternoon she wandered on and on, 
singing softly to herself a ditty relating that 
“Kitty Bairdie had a coo,” going on to describe 
minutely, and at length, the various animals owned 
by this worthy lady, and concluding each verse 
with the cheerful injunction, “Dance, Kitty 
Bairdie! ’ ’ 

Everything seemed to want to sing that after¬ 
noon, and did sing, too, lustily and long. Uncon¬ 
sciously Maggie raised her voice till the final 


170 CHILDEEN OF LAST CENTUEY 

‘‘Dance, Kitty Bairdie!^’ had quite a rollicking 
sound, and she found herself doing a sort of double 
shuffle among the ground ivy and foxgloves. 

It is not easy to dance in and out of ground ivy 
and brambles, and Maggie paused for breath, only 
to catch it again in a perfect agony of fear, as, not 
five yards from her, she beheld a big white figure, 
apparently just risen out of the ground. 

Paralyzed with terror, she stood staring at the 
vision. A tall man it was—she was sure it was a 
man, and no ghost—clad in curious flowing robes 
of soft whitey flannel, falling to his feet in innu¬ 
merable folds, while in his hand he held what 
Maggie took to be some instrument of torture. It 
was a butterfly net; but Maggie did not know this, 
for people did not catch many butterflies in Com¬ 
mercial Street, Leith. 

The whole dreadful truth flashed upon her. This 
was one of the monks! Had she not read in a 
guide to the neighborhood that “The Dominican 
Priory of the Annunciation is a large and hand¬ 
some building; here candidates for the priesthood 
pursue a course of study in divinity and philoso¬ 
phy. It is under the government of a Prior.’’ 
This, then, must be one of the priests, and having 
been very well brought up in the strictest sect of 
the Free Kirk, she was sure that if only he suc¬ 
ceeded in “catching her,” she would be put to un¬ 
speakable tortures, or forced to recant her faith. 

Had she not with her own eyes seen her mother 
hastily slam the door of their flat in the face of a 
woman wearing a queer head-dress and long cloak, 
who had come to beg for money? 


THE OLD EELIGION 


171 


‘‘I’ll h'a’e none o’ they Papishes here!” her 
mother exclaimed angrily, and then—for it was 
just before Maggie came south—“and you, Mag¬ 
gie, if you see ony o’ them when you’re wi’ your 
aunty, just turn and flee. I’m told there’s a whole 
clamjamfray o’ them there, an’ ye can never tell 
what they Jesuits will be at.” 

So, having found her breath sufficiently to give 
a wild cry, Maggie turned and fled. 

The queer white man, who, as she afterward re¬ 
membered, looked astonished, called something 
after her. But Maggie’s heart was thumping in 
her ears to the exclusion of every other sound, and 
she ran blindly on till one treacherous little foot, 
more used to pavements than rough forest ground, 
gave under her with a horrid wrench, and she fell 
forward in a terrified little heap just as she 
reached a footpath leading she knew not whither. 

There she lay shivering with pain and fear, with 
her eyes shut, for she heard the soft swish of long 
garments through the undergrowth. Then a 
shadow fell upon her, and she was lifted up into 
a pair of strong arms, while a voice that even her 
excited imagination could not construe as un¬ 
kindly exclaimed: 

“I do believe I frightened you, and I’m awfully 
sorry. I don’t suppose you ever saw such a funny 
frock before!” 

There was something human and disarming 
about the “awfully” and “funny frock”; more¬ 
over, the owner of the voice did not hold her as 
though she were a captive. He sat down at the 
foot of the big tree whose gnarled roots had 



172 CHILDREN OF LAST CENTURY 

tripped Maggie ap, and set her on his knee. Be¬ 
sides, the voluminons flannel garment had a most 
reassnring and workaday smell of soap. But she 
could not bring herself to open her eyes just yet. 
She screwed them and her courage up very tight, 
and whispered: 

‘H’ll no recant! Ye may hum me, but I’ll no 
recant! ’ ’ 

The big, queer man threw back his head and 
laughed, and his laugh was even more inspiring of 
confidence than his speaking voice. But he pulled 
himself up short in the very middle of his laugh 
to ask: 

say, though, did you hurt yourself when you 
fell?” 

Maggie opened her eyes the tiniest little bit, and 
for the first time saw this queer man’s face. It 
was a kind face, a handsome face, with large merry 
brown eyes and an exceedingly straight nose. His 
mouth was well cut and firm, and when he smiled 
as he did then, he showed two rows of admirably 
white and even teeth. And the good smell of 
soap was in no way deceptive, for there was about 
this queer man’s appearance a radiant cleanliness 
that was by no means merely physical. All this 
did Maggie gravely take in through half-shut eyes, 
and though the pain in her ankle was horrible, 
and her heart still danced a sort of breakdown 
against her ribs, she was no longer afraid—only 
very, very curious. 

The queer tall man, looking down at the face 
resting against his arm, noticed that it was small 
and white, with long-lashed closed eyes set rather 


THE OLD RELIGION 


173 


far apart, and that the little freckles looked pa¬ 
thetically prominent across the thin small nose; 
and even as Maggie was comforted by the good 
smell of clean flannel, so he recognized approv¬ 
ingly that he held in his arms a very clean little 
girl, even though her pinafore was patched and 
her shoes worn at the toes. 

‘^Are you hurt, you poor miteT’ he asked 
again. 

For answer Maggie stuck out the painful foot, 
and behold! there was a big lump on the ankle, 
and it looked twice as big as the other one. 

^ ^ Here’s a pretty kettle of fish! ’ ’ cried the queer 
man. ^‘YouVe sprained your ankle.’’ 

As he spoke he set Maggie on the ground beside 
him very gently, and diving into the folds of his 
habit produced a large handkerchief, which he 
proceeded to tear into strips. Then, very gently 
and deftly, he bandaged up the poor swollen foot. 
By this time Maggie’s blue eyes were wide open, 
and as he stooped over her foot she found time to 
wonder why he wore such ^‘a wee, wee roond cap- 
pie” on the back of his head. The pain was bad, 
but she tried hard not to flinch, and when it was 
all done and the bandage fastened with a little 
pebble brooch that she had worn at her neck, he 
said gaily: 

‘‘And now to carry you home, for that foot must 
have hot fomentations as soon as possible.” 

Here, however, Maggie demurred. ‘ ‘ I can walk 
fine, ’ ’ she announced with great dignity, and tried; 
but it was no use—she couldn’t even stand, the 
pain was so bad. 



174 CHILDEEN OF LAST CENTUEY 

So the ‘^papist man” picked her up in his arms 
and set off toward the village. 

Now, Maggie was jnst a little anxions at this, 
for she had wandered a good way into the park, 
and the path he took seemed qnite unfamiliar. 

With unprecedented courage she took hold of 
his chin with her hand and turned his face that 
she could see it. 

“You Ye sure you Ye no takin’ me to your con¬ 
vent ? ’ ’ she asked gravely, as one who begs to know 
the worst at once. She still had fleeting visions of 
a dungeon followed by stake and faggots if she 
proved leal to the faith of her fathers. 

“My dear child, they wouldn’t have you there. 
We don’t allow any women to come in—not even 
little girls—^where I live.” 

Maggie was silent for a minute; then, because 
every Scotsman, woman, or child loves an argu¬ 
ment, and a theological argument best of all, she 
said slowly: 

“But you worship a woman—images of a 
woman.” 

^ ‘ Ah, that’s rather different. I don’t think we ’ll 
discuss that, because, you see, we look at every¬ 
thing from rather diiferent points of view. How’s 
that poor foot of yours? You’re a regular Spar¬ 
tan to bear pain. Am I carrying you comfort¬ 
ably?” 

Here was another facer for Maggie; he did not 
want “to discuss that.” 

“I thought,” she said, “that you liked to burn 
everybody wha’ didna ’gree wi’ you—^when ye got 
the chance,” she added. 


THE OLD EELIGION 


175 


^‘Oh, we’re not quite so black as we’re painted, 
and the world is big enough for us all nowadays, 
even though there are so many more people in it. 
Isn’t that a good thing?” 

Maggie’s honest little heart yearned over this 
mistaken man, who carried little girls so tenderly, 
who seemed so kind and gay. 

wish that you were no a papish,” she said 
softly, “for I’m sorely afraid that ye’ll no win 
Heaven if you worship graven images.” 

The papist in question stopped short in the 
middle of the woodland path. The sunlight shin¬ 
ing through the leaves painted fantastic patterns 
on his white draperies, and his eyes were very 
kind as he said gently: 

“Don’t you think there will be even more room 
in Heaven than there is here for all sorts of 
people, provided they are kind, and brave, and 
honest, and do their best?” 

And Maggie agreed that it might be possible, 
and was something comforted. By and by he 
asked her what the nice song was that she had 
been singing when he first met her, and she sang 
it again for him all through, till he, too, learned 
the tune; then she taught him the words, and al¬ 
though his Scotch left much to be desired, they 
made a very considerable noise between them, and 
the woods resounded to the strains of “Dance, 
Kitty Bairdie.” 

• •••••• 

“They monks seem different to the ordinary 
sort,” said Maggie that night, when, after much 


176 CHILDEEN OF LAST CENTUEY 


fomentation of the injured ankle, her annt tucked 
her into bed. 

‘‘They’re just harmless haverals,” said her 
aunt indulgently; but Maggie ‘ ‘ added a wee thing ’ ’ 
onto her prayers, and whispered under the bed¬ 
clothes : 

“Please make room for yon clean man at—any 
—rate.’' 



COMRADES 


He was called Bunchy because, when a very little 
boy, his clothes would bunch; the tiny petticoats 
were short for their width, and everything stuck 
out all round him like a frill. 

Now that he was five, and wore breeches with 
four little buttons at the knee, the name still stuck 
to him, though it was no longer appropriate. 

Bunchy was lonely. 

If Pussy had been there it would have been very 
different; but she had been sent for quite sud¬ 
denly to go and nurse dad, who had incontinently 
fallen ill with influenza just three days after 
mother (Bunchy always called her Pussy), Nana, 
and he had settled down for a fortnight's holiday 
in a Cotteswold village. 

It was a delightful village! It had a green with 
noisy geese upon it, a stream that gurgled and 
splashed and told fairy tales on sleepy September 
afternoons, and real woods surrounded it. 

The cottage where Pussy had taken rooms was 
ever so pretty, and had a garden full of currant- 
bushes and celery. 

For three days they had a lovely time. They 
sought giants in the woods, finding squirrels in¬ 
stead—which were prettier and only less exciting; 

177 


178 CHILDEEN OF LAST CENTUEY 

they paddled their feet in the stream and canght 
minnows in a bottle; they pretended that the geese 
on the green were ‘‘Trolls,” and routed them with 
great slaughter; and they had found mushrooms 
before breakfast in a neighboring field. 

Then Pussy had to go away, and for Bunchy 
the face of Nature was changed and clouded. 
Only Nana was left, and, although very kind, 
she was not an exciting companion. She knew 
nothing of giants, and seemed to care very little 
about Trolls. Moreover, on this particular morn¬ 
ing she sat indoors making a cotton dress, and 
told Bunchy to “run and play in the garden like 
a good little boy, and not worry.” How can 
people, he thought, sit in a room and sew when all 
the beautiful out-of-doors seems clamoring for 
them to come and admire it? 

However, he played in the garden for a while; 
but it was rather a small garden, and he grew tired 
of being a “third son” all by himself, with no one 
to admire him, so he came in again and climbed 
the steep little staircase. Finding the door of his 
mother’s room open, he went in. The dressing- 
table faced the door, and the first thing he saw 
was a pair of Pussy’s slippers standing in front 
of it. They had tall curly heels and buckles, such 
as she loved, and he remembered how, even with 
the tall heels, she did not reach to daddy’s shoul¬ 
der. Somehow the sight of those slippers made 
him want her so dreadfully that he couldn’t stay 
in the room or in the garden. He went out into 
the road to walk and walk until he should come to 
Yorkshire, where daddy was laid up in the house 


COMRADES 179 

of a bachelor friend with whom he Ead gone to 
shoot. 

It was a very straight road, with a trim path by 
the side. By and by he came to some big gates. 
There was a little house inside them, all covered 
with purple clematis. The gate stood open, and 
as Bunchy was rather tired of the neat, straight 
road, he turned in, and went down a very broad 
gravel path. A little way inside the gate stood 
two little churches, one on each side of the path; 
beyond them, as far as Bunchy could see, it was 
all garden. There were flowering shrubs, and 
trees, and lots of grass, but it was unlike any gar¬ 
den he had ever seen before, for it was full of little 
mounds, and there were crosses, and slabs of 
stone, and marble angels dotted about among the 
mounds. 

He turned down a side-path to investigate fur¬ 
ther in this strange garden. Nobody was in sight, 
and he wandered on by himself till, turning a 
corner suddenly, he came upon a man. 

The man was dressed in black, and was sitting 
on a big stone slab—a very grew old slab; but 
close at his feet there was one of those curious 
mounds that puzzled Bunchy, and although this 
one had no grass upon it, you could hardly see the 
brown earth, for it was almost covered with scat¬ 
tered flowers—all of one kind. 

Bunchy knew the flower by sight, for Pussy 
always wore a bit in her tam-o’-shanter when she 
came back from Scotland. The man did not move 
as Bunchy came up to him. The little boy re¬ 
garded him with grave brown eyes, and something 


180 CHILDEEN OF LAST CENTUEY 


in his expression made Bunchy sure that the man 
was sorry. 

Now, in Bunchy’s house, when people are sorry, 
Pussy talks about something else, and she does it 
so beautifully that they straightway forget their 
sorrow in the interest of her remarks. Bunchy 
felt that he ought to talk about something else to 
this man who looked so sorry; but how can you 
change a subject when no subject has been 
broached? 

So the child went up to the sorry man and lifted 
his tam-o’-shanter, saying politely: 

‘ ‘ Can you, please, tell me whose garden this is ? ” 

Now it is an easy thing to take off a tam-o’- 
shanter, but when you try to put it on again it has 
a shabby way of curling up and sitting on the top 
of your head so insecurely that it topples off again 
directly. Pussy generally put Bunchy’s on again 
for him, and as she wasn’t there he left the matter 
alone and held it in his hand. The man started a 
little as Bunchy spoke, then he said slowly: 

‘‘I think it is God’s garden.” 

Bunchy was not surprised. He felt that he knew 
God very well indeed. AVhen you say prayers 
morning and evening, and know that there is a 
benevolent Somebody somewhere, who gives you 
your home, and your parents, and your little white 
bed, who likes you to be truthful and courteous, 
and to have clean hands at meals, it is quite natu¬ 
ral to hear that this benevolent Person has a gar¬ 
den. All nice people ought to have gardens, so 
Bunchy said: 

^‘Why does God have so many little rockeries 


COMRADES 181 

in His garden? Why are there all these stones, 
and figures, and little mounds? 

‘‘When people die they are buried in this gar¬ 
den, and their friends put up the crosses and 
stones-” 

‘ ‘ And angels ? ’ ’ interrupted Bunchy admiringly; 
and as he looked up in the man’s face he noticed 
that his eyes were very kind, but that there were 
big black shadows round them, and their lids 
looked red and heavy. 

“They put up the crosses, and stones, and 
angels to show where their friends are sleeping,” 
continued the tall man. 

“Then it’s a funeral,” said Bunchy solemnly, 
and there was silence. 

The man looked sorrier than ever, and Bunchy 
felt that now was the time to talk of something 
else, so he said: 

“Can you tell me the nearest way to York¬ 
shire ? ’ ’ 

The man seemed to give himself a shake, as 
though he were trying to wake up. He held out 
his hand to Bunchy, who placed his own in it con¬ 
fidingly; then he drew the child toward him and 
set him on his knee, asking: 

“Why do you want to go to Yorkshire, old 
chap ? ’ ’ 

“Because Pussy is there and I am so lonely,” 
Bunchy’s voice broke. “I went into her room, 
and I saw her shoes—the ones with the curly heels 
—and they made me want her so bad. They’re 
such tall heels.” 

“She had such little feet,” murmured the man. 



182 CHILDEEN OP LAST CENTURY 

And Bunchy saw that he had gone to sleep again, 
so he sat very still for a minute or two, then he 
said mournfully: 

‘^I^m so lonely!^’ 

‘ ‘ So am I, ’ ’ said the man. ‘ ‘ My Pussy Has gone 
to sleep. She is not coming hack any more. She 
is sleeping under the heather here.” 

Bunchy felt the man’s shoulder heave as he 
leant against him, but he said nothing. He felt 
that this was not a time to talk of something else; 
this sorryness was something beyond him; so he 
stroked the man’s face with a soft, sticky little 
hand, and the corners of his mouth drooped, but 
he did not feel quite so lonely. 

The man seemed to like the feel of the little 
hand, for he bent his head, and, laying his cheek 
against Bunchy’s, said in a queer broken voice: 

‘‘How is it that you understand, you quaint little 
boy?” 

“Sorry people always understand, and I feel to 
love you! Will you come to Yorkshire too? We 
should be such nice company.” 

The man seemed to consider; then he said: 

“It’s a long way. I’m afraid we shouldn’t get 
there by candle-light. You’d be very tired, and 
your shoes would be quite worn out.” 

“Couldn’t you carry me a bit sometimes? 
Daddy does when I’m very tired.” 

“Well, I might do that; but even then we 
shouldn’t get there to-day. How is it you are here 
all alone?” 

The man seemed waldng up, and waited quite 
anxiously for Bxmchy’s answer. 


COMKADES 


183 


‘‘Well, yon see, Nana was bnsy sewing, and I 
was lonely wivont Pnssy, so I thongM I’d walk to 
Yorkshire jnst to see her.” 

“Suppose yon come to lunch with me instead. 
It’s not so far as Yorkshire; still, it’s a good way, 
and we’ll go and tell Nana you’re coming, then 
she won’t be anxious. I don’t think Pussy would 
like you to walk all that way to-day. She ’ll come 
back as soon as she can, you may be quite sure. 
Will you come? We’d be nice company, as you 
say. ’ ’ 

Bunchy looked up into the man’s eyes; then he 
slid otf his knee, saying: 

“I’ll come, thank you.” 

The man got up off the big flat stone and held 
out his hand to Bunchy; but the little boy had 
knelt down by the mound all covered with heather. 
He stooped his curly head and kissed the flowers, 
saying in his sweet child’s voice: 

‘ ‘ Good-bye, man’s Pussy! I hope you are happy 
in God’s garden.” 

Then he took the man’s hand and they walked 
away together. 

But the man had gone to sleep again, for he 
said: 

“Nay! And though all men, seeing, had pity 
on me, she would not see.” 


LITTLE SHOES 


The Vicarage stands at the bottom of the mar¬ 
ket place, inside high walls and entered by wooden 
gates which generally stand open. Thus the pas¬ 
serby can, for a moment, feast his eyes npon the 
perfect garden within. 

The Vicaress was dead-heading her roses. She 
does this carefnlly every snmmer afternoon just 
after lunch. She had reached the bush of cabbage 
roses close to the gate, and her long lath basket 
lay on the drive beside her. 

The market place was empty and still; nobody 
was shopping, for all the world rested preparatory 
to attending the EarPs garden-party later on. 
Eoad and houses alike glared white in the hot June 
sunshine, while in contrast the Vicarage garden 
seemed doubly cool and shady. The yew hedge 
just inside the gates threw long green shadows on 
drive and lawn. Such a lawn it was! Plantains 
or dandelions were a thing unknown. Other lawns 
might get brown or worn in a drought, but the 
Vicarage lawn was watered every night by a 
specially constructed hose, that the beauty of its 
velvet turf might never vary. The Vicar was wont 
to excuse his exceeding pride in his lawn by quot¬ 
ing: ‘‘The green hath two pleasures: the one, 

184 


LITTLE SHOES 


185 


because nothing is more pleasant to the eye than 
green grass finely shorn; the other, because it will 
give you a fair alley in the midst.’’ It was a 
sunken lawn surrounded by smoothly shaven banks 
and reached by broad stone steps. 

The Vicar and like-minded clerics occasionally 
played bowls upon it; but to think of lawn tennis 
or croquet in connection with such grass were 
little short of sacrilege. 

Presently the Vicaress became aware that a 
woman stood in the doorway, a woman carrying a 
baby, while a little girl of some three years clung 
to her skirts. 

They stood gazing wistfully into the garden. 
As both mother and child wore red kerchiefs in¬ 
stead of hats, the Vicaress looked for the inevit¬ 
able organ, but could not see it. 

As she strongly disapproved of indiscriminate 
charity she shook her head at them, saying: ‘‘We 
never give at the door!” 

Wearily shifting the baby to her other arm, the 
woman answered, with a touch of gentle dignity: 
“I have not ask the senora for money, but if she 
permit that we rest on the seat in the shade; we 
do no harm.” 

Her voice was soft, and her English refined by 
its foreign accent. The Vicaress pointed to a 
rustic seat under the yews, saying: “You may 
certainly come in and rest.” Then she continued 
to deadhead the cabbage rose—it was an untidy 
bush that cabbage rose. 

As the child toddled past her to climb into the 
seat the Vicaress noticed that the little feet made 


186 CHILDREN OF LAST CENTURY 


red marks on the gravel. The woman pointed to 
them with an apologetic shrug: ‘‘The little Zita 
she wear out her shoes, her feet bleed. The senora 
has a pair of old shoes of her children? Yes?’’ 

The Vicaress shook her head, and a spasm of 
pain crossed her face. There were no children at 
the Vicarage now. But shoes? Yes! there were 
shoes. She bent down to look at the ragged little 
feet, and very gently took off Zita’s shoes. “Her 
feet must be washed,” she announced. “Will she 
come with me?” 

Zita shook her curls out of her eyes, but on 
further inspection of the senora declined to budge. 
“Then I must bring the water here,” said the 
Vicaress, marching away to fetch it. 

She was a tall, thin woman, with keen grey eyes 
and a lined, hard face, framed in hair that Nature 
had intended to break into fluffy rings of sunlight 
round her brow. But the Vicaress coerced her 
hair with some abomination that kept it flat and 
close to her head. It was only when a shaft of 
sunlight struck the tight braid at the back that 
one realized it was of the true Titian color. She 
went up the wide oak staircase into her cool, sweet- 
scented bedroom, where the Gloire de Dijon roses 
nodded into the windows. Stopping in front of a 
big Chippendale wardrobe, she pulled out one of 
the deep drawers. 

“I can’t bear to do it!” she murmured, “but I 
never give money, and her little feet were cut and 
bleeding. ’ ’ 

In that drawer lay many pairs of half-worn little 
shoes—shoes that had pattered gaily down the 


LITTLE SHOES 


187 


Vicarage stairs and danced across the sacred lawn. 
Her eyes were very soft as she chose ont a pair of 
little strap shoes and some woollen socks. Had 
the Mnrillo chernb, chattering in her sweet jargon 
of Pyrenean Spanish nnder the shade of the yew 
trees, seen the face of the Vicaress just then, she 
would not have refused to go with her. But the 
Vicaress kept what Mr. Barrie tenderly calls her 
“soft face’’ for solitary places. The best that 
people could say of her was, that if her manner 
was hard her deeds were often kindly. She filled 
a basin with warm water and went through the 
silent house into the garden again. Zita laughed 
and showed her white teeth as she dabbled her feet 
in the water, becoming quite friendly; then the 
Vicaress dried her brown legs and arrayed her in 
the new shoes and socks. On the party being re¬ 
galed with Vicarage cake and milk, the mother 
informed her hostess that they purposed to go on 
to Gloucester that day—a fifteen-mile walk. 

“Have you no money to go by train?” asked 
the Vicaress. 

“Oh, no, senora! My ’usban’ sell ze ice cream 
there, he cannot send me large money.” 

“But you can’t get there to-night; where will 
you sleep?” 

The woman shrugged her shoulders, turning her 
unoccupied hand outward with an expressive ges¬ 
ture. “In the hedge, senora, it is cool and dry.” 

“But the children?” 

‘ ‘ Oh, zay sleep—and Zita, she walk well till Her 
foots come to ze ground.” Then turning to the 
child she said something rapidly in Spanish, add- 


188 CHILDREN OF LAST CENTURY 

ing: “She sing for you, senora, you so kind for 
her.’’ 

la puerta del cieloSy venden zapatos/^ 
crooned Zita in her funny little nasal chant, and 
sang the lullaby right through. 

‘‘What is it all about?” demanded her hostess 
with a queer little catch in her voice. 

‘ ‘ Senora! it is that zay sell shoes at ze doorway 
of heaven, to ze ragged little angels who have 
none! ’ ’ 

The woman rose, and shouldering the brown 
baby, prepared to depart. But the baby, who ap¬ 
proved of Vicarage cake, choked alarmingly, and 
delayed matters for a while. 

The baby’s equanimity restored, they bade their 
hostess farewell. They had not gone very far, 
however, when hearing hasty footsteps behind 
them, they turned. It was the Vicaress. She 
thrust something into little Zita’s hand, exclaim¬ 
ing breathlessly: “I wish you to go by train; it 
is not safe for such babies to be out all night!” 
Then she turned and fairly ran home. 

An hour later, as she stood in front of her look¬ 
ing-glass, smoothing her hair till it looked like a 
yellow skull-cap, she said to hersef: “To pay for 
a person’s railway journey is not indiscriminate 
charity!” and her eyes grew tender as she thought 
of the little shoes. 


‘‘PASSING THE LOVE OF WOMEN 


“You sent for me, mother?^’ 

“Yes, child; I sent for you to say good-bye. I 
am going away for some time. ^ ’ The woman spoke 
deliberately in the monotonous voice of one giving 
a piece of information tedious to give. 

Angus did not express any surprise, or regret. 
The nine years he had spent with his mother had 
not helped him to know her. Without in the least 
understanding wherein lay her strange aloofness, 
he was conscious that he was supremely uninter¬ 
esting to her. He wondered why it should be so, 
and his honest boyish soul was sometimes troubled. 
But children submit readily to the inevitable, and 
Angus had his compensations. 

Vera Warden looked at her son with more in¬ 
terest than was usual with her. He was certainly 
a handsome lad, tall and well built, with blue eyes 
that were both kind and honest. She had been long 
in making her decision. Now that it was made she 
did not regret: she only wondered if, somehow, 
she had missed something that more commonplace 
women find easily. 

“Angus, dear, you must take care of father. 
You and your father are so much alike—under¬ 
stand each other so well—that it will be easy for 

189 


190 CHILDEEN OF LAST CENTUEY 


you. You must be especially good to him, now.’’ 

There was a curious little catch in Vera’s voice 
as she said the ‘‘now.” 

“Why are you going, mother?” questioned An¬ 
gus, feeling that here was something even more 
puzzling than usual in his mother’s manner. 
“When are you coming hack? Father will miss 
you.” 

“Will he?” asked Vera wistfully. “And you^ 
Angus, will you miss me at all?” 

Angus was profoundly astonished. He would 
like to have kissed his mother just as he kissed 
dad, but he did not dare. He only grew red, and 
fidgeted awkwardly, as he answered: “Of course 
I shall miss you, mother—at meals. ’ ’ 

It was not greed that prompted the child’s defi¬ 
nition, but the fact that he seldom saw his mother, 
except at breakfast and lunch. 

Vera Warden did not care for children, and said 
so—frequently. 

The carriage came to the door, good-bye being 
said without much emotion on either side. As she 
was driven out of the big stone gates, Vera gave 
herself a little shake, saying: ‘ ‘ And now for life! ’ ’ 

• •••••• 

An hour later Thomas Warden returned from a 
fishing expedition on the other side of the Dale. 
The oak trees in the avenue had burst into gold- 
green leaf. The big chestnut on the lawn—the 
only chestnut on the estate—^was covered with 
cones of pinky blossom. The May sunset touched 
the grim grey house with rosy light, and Thomas 
Warden felt a welcome in it all. 



^‘PASSING THE LOVE OF WOMEN’’ 191 


Laying down his rods and fishing-baskets in the 
hall, he went straight to his stndy. There on his 
blotting-book lay the letter he had both dreaded 
and expected. 

His snnbnrnt face looked grey as he took it up. 
He sat down heavily; then, with shaking hands, 
opened the letter and read: 

‘‘I have bnrnt my boats; there is no going back. 
I warned you that it would come to this: that I 
would bear the monotony no longer. I have given 
you ten years of my life—the ten best years. Now 
I owe it to myself to live—it may be ten years 
more—but anyway, to live. Marriage and mater¬ 
nity have, for me, proved uninteresting; but I have 
endured them for your sake, and for the sake of 
the boy—while he was quite young. Had he been 
in any way an unusual boy I might have found 
life more tolerable. To develop his mind would 
have been an interest for me; he might have 
shared, in some degree, my aspirations after a 
fuller intellectual life. But he is a healthy, hand¬ 
some, quite commonplace boy, who will grow into 
what you would call ^an honest. God-fearing man’ 
without my help. He has an excellent governess, 
and your good mother will doubtless come fre¬ 
quently to worship you both. I wish I could free 
you of me altogether, and that you could marry 
again and he happy. But you are not the sort of 
man to bear with equanimity any sort of scandal 
or publicity, and you have my promise that the 
life I lead shall be such as can give you no 
cause for offence other than the fact that I lead 
it away from you. For your never-failing cour¬ 
tesy and kindness I thank you. Believe me, I shall 
always have the sincerest affection and respect for 



192 CHILDREN OF LAST CENTURY 

you. The fact remains, however, that I cannot 
lead your life, and you can lead no other. Let us 
then separate, and go our different ways in peace. 

‘Hn every conventional and actual sense, I am 
and wiU be your faithful wife, 

‘‘Vera Warden. 

There was nothing in the letter that she had not 
said to him, many times, during the last six 
months. 

Now, she had actually carried out her so often 
announced intention, and was gone; and the reali¬ 
zation stunned him. He felt cold and numbed. 
The roar of the beck, in which he had stood all 
morning, was in his ears, and he gazed out into the 
gathering twilight, seeing nothing—only conscious 
that it was dark and chill everywhere. 

There was a knock at the door, and a servant 
came in, saying: “Please, sir. Master Angus is 
ready, and would like you to come to him, if you 
are not too tired.” 

Dragging himself out of his chair, he passed his 
hand across his dazed, strained eyes. Then he 
went out of the room and up the wide old stair¬ 
case to his dressing-room, where Angus slept. 

“IVe got a new nightsuit, dad, just like yours. 
Look—pocket and trowsies, and all!” exclaimed 
the child, displaying the latter garments with 
great pride. “Miss Taylor had them made for 
me in York. Aren’t they nice ? ’ ’ 

“Yes, my boy, yes—^very!” but the voice was 
absent, and Angus felt that there was a something 
lacking, something that he generally found there. 


‘‘PASSING THE LOVE OF WOMEN’’ 193 


The child felt frightened. Was dad, too, going 
to hold himself “aloof”? Wonld he, too, take to 
looking over people’s heads, and answering in a 
far-away voice? The thonght was one fnll of 
omen. 

Angus gazed into his father’s face, as he sat 
wearily on the edge of the little bed. The child, 
if commonplace, was quick to understand those 
who loved him. In a moment he acquitted his 
father, and came and knelt beside him, rubbing 
his curly head against his knees. He said his 
prayer with devoutly folded hands, as Grannie had 
taught him. Then, climbing into Warden’s arms, 
put his own round his neck. 

“Shall I sing my psalm, dad? Or are you too 
tired ? ’ ’ 

His father held him very close. “Sing it, lad¬ 
die. Sing Grannie’s psalm.” 

Grannie w^as Scotch. When she came she taught 
Angus the psalms in metre. She taught him other 
things that he learned more easily than the 
psalms; chief among them a great love and trust 
in her, and through her, for everything Scotch. 

Shortbread was Scotch, and it was good. Scones 
were Scotch, and they were good, especially with 
currants. Edinburgh rock was excellent; there¬ 
fore the psalms, too, were probably superior in 
the Scotch version. Angus learned all Grannie’s 
favorites, the first of which was the twenty-third: 

My table thou hast furnished, 

In presence of my foes. 


194 CHILDREN OF LAST CENTURY 


The child always pictured a long table, covered 
with a fair white cloth, and plentifully plenished 
with plates piled high with scones and shortbread. 
He wondered what ‘Hoes^’ were, for he hadnT 
any; he thought they must be the servants who 
handed round the plates. 

‘‘Goodness and mercy all my life shall surely 
follow me.’’ The sad, patient tune Grannie had 
taught him sounded almost triumphant, as the 
child’s strong treble voice rang out. When he had 
finished, his father leant his head against the little 
rounded shoulder, and there was silence save for 
the man’s quick breathing. 

“Good-night, dad!” said Angus at last, turning 
himself to see his father’s face. 

Thomas Warden rose hastily; he laid the boy in 
his little white bed, kissed him, and blessed him, 
and went down and sat in the study again. But a 
man cannot dine in his fishing boots; so he went 
upstairs, had a bath, and while he dressed, Angus 
discoursed cheerfully to him through the half-open 
door. 

• • • • •••• 

The silence was unbearable; it was so lonely. 
Thomas Warden could not sleep. He got up and 
walked about his room. Only one o’clock! The 
night had hardly begun. 

The moon shone brilliantly, but the wind blew 
shrewdly through the open casement. May nights 
are cold in the North country. 

He went into the dressing-room and looked at 
Angus. “If she had only loved the boy—if she 
had only loved the boy.” He could have forgiven 


‘‘PASSING THE LOVE OF WOMEN’’ 195 


her all the rest. A just and tolerant man, he knew 
his own limitations. He granted to the fnll his 
wife’s intellectual superiority; hut she might have 
loved the hoy. 

“Goodness and mercy all my life shall surely 
follow me. ’’ Why did those lines ring in his head? 
and then, there always followed the sentence in his 
wife’s letter: “I cannot live your life, and you can 
live no other.” 

It was true: he could live no other. But the hoy 
—why did she not love the hoy? 

He drew up the blind, and the mellow moonlight 
fell on the sleeping child. Surely he was a goodly 
child, so comely, and kindly, and honest. As he 
looked at the boy his heart went out to him. He 
did not stoop and kiss him as a woman would have 
done; he reverenced too much this fair sleep which 
wrapped him round. He went hack to his own 
room and got a piUow. Then, laying his long 
length on the floor beside the little bed, and with 
the child’s psalm still sounding in his ears, he too 
slept. 

The room was flooded with moonlight when An¬ 
gus awoke. There was a sound of regular and 
heavy breathing. Angus felt puzzled; puzzled, hut 
not in the least afraid. Such breathing must come 
from a man, or a dog; from men and dogs the 
child had experienced nothing hut kindness. 

He sat up, and listening, looked about to see 
where the sound came from. He shook his hair 
back from his forehead, and rubbed his eyes. Yes! 
he was not mistaken, it was his father who lay 
there on the floor beside his bed. 



196 CHTLDEEN OF LAST CENTURY 


Angus rose softly, and touched his father’s bare 
feet; they were very cold. ‘‘Poor dad,” he said 
to himself—“and him so tired!” 

Then suddenly he remembered his mother’s 
words: “You must take care of father.” It was 
bad to sleep without a covering. Grannie had told 
him that. He pulled his little quilt otf his bed, and 
laid it lightly on his father. To his delight the 
sleeping figure never stirred, but the quilt was 
short, and Thomas Warden was long—^by no 
amount of stretching would it cover both his shoul¬ 
ders and his feet—poor cold feet! Then Angus 
was seized by an inspiration, which even his mother 
could not have called quite commonplace. He lay 
down at his father’s feet, and unbuttoning the 
jacket of the new sleeping suit, he cuddled up so 
that the cold feet rested on his own warm breast. 
Then he, too, fell asleep. 

The kindly moon shone in upon them, and it was 
very still. 

When Thomas Warden awoke the moonlight had 
changed to pearly dawn. He was no longer cold, 
and when he realized why, he was no longer lonely. 


A THROW BACK 


Kana had at last gone out and left the coast 
clear. Kit seized her little brother’s hand, and 
they sped down the long passage to the red baize 
door which swung heavily but did not latch, shut¬ 
ting oif the nursery quarters from the house. 

Kit was a person of dramatic instincts, and as 
they ran down the passage she quoted in a deep 
and awful voice, ‘‘The tiger is a fearful beast. He 
comes when you expect him least.” Addison 
gazed fearfully over his shoulder, and ran at the 
top of his speed. 

At last by a mighty effort they pushed open the 
heavy red door, and the staircase and the house 
lay before them for exploration. It was a very 
wide staircase, black and shiny and slippery, and 
as they went down their little feet made a patter¬ 
ing noise which seemed to echo and multiply in the 
silent house. Kit turned and said, “Hush!” in a 
reproving voice to Addison, who was, like Agag, 
walking delicately, on the banister side. “I can’t 
hush any more than I’m doing!” he replied in an 
injured tone. “I must put my feet down firm or 
I’d skate!” 

“Come on!” said Kit. “Let’s go and see if 

197 


198 CHILDEEN OF LAST CENTUEY 


Jakes is in the dining-room, and he’ll tell ns what’s 
for Innch.” 

They crossed the stone-flagged hall, and Kit 
opened the dining-room door and marched boldly 
in. There was no one there; the big room was 
wrapped in silence, and Addison felt very small 
and timid as he stood on the threshold. Not so 
Kit; she walked boldly up to the table, which was 
laid. There was a great deal of old silver on the 
table, and many flowers; bnt its appearance was 
evidently most displeasing to Kit, for she ex¬ 
claimed angrily: 

‘^Look here, Addison, just look here! Jakes has 
only laid Innch for oneV’ 

Even the mild and gentle Addison was ronsed to 
something like indignation at this tremendous in¬ 
telligence. To have breakfast and tea in the nurs¬ 
ery is an understood thing; but lunch—^whoever 
heard of a well-conducted child having lunch any¬ 
where but in the dining-room, once he or she could 
hold a spoon and fork? It was abominable; it 
had to be seen into at once. 

Kit gave an indignant sniff, saying: ‘‘I know it 
isn’t Jakes; it’s Nana. She’d go and say we could 
have lunch with her till Miss Mercer came; but 
I’ll go and speak to grandpapa at once; it’s a 
shame; I won’t stand it. Come on!” 

The obedient Addison trotted after Kit across 
the hall with some alacrity. He hadn’t seen much 
of grandpapa; but what he had seen he liked. How 
still the old house was, no sound to be heard but 
the drip, drip of the rain on the ivy outside the 


A THKOW BACK 199 

windows and the sizzle and fiz of the big logs in 
the great stone fireplace. 

The children looked upon ‘‘Nanas’’ and their 
like as necessary evils. They divided mankind 
into two classes, which they called respectively 
“the dears” and “the deafs.” To the “dears” 
belonged father and mother, all father’s friends 
and most of mother’s; Gaffer and all Gaffer’s 
servants; orderlies—particularly orderlies—and 
grooms. To the “deafs” belonged nnrses, gov¬ 
ernesses, cross gardeners, and a great many yonng 
ladies who wore smart frocks and were affection¬ 
ate in public. These latter were called “deafs” 
not because of any defect in their aural arrange¬ 
ments, but simply because the children considered 
them incapable of discussing anything interesting. 
“Stupid people!” Kit was wont to observe, “who 
ask you how old you are, and who fetch stale 
cake out of tin boxes, and one’s got to eat it for 
politeness’ sake. Oh, I hate deafs!” 

When Kit reached the study door she knocked, 
but there was no answer. “Mother says he never 
hears if he’s writing, ’ ’ she whispered. ‘ ‘ Let’s go 
in—come on!” So she turned the handle of the 
door and went in. Grandfather was writing. His 
great knee-hole table was piled with open books, 
and he had on his gold-rimmed spectacles. He 
never looked up as Kit shut the door softly behind 
her. For one thing, doors never creaked in grand¬ 
father’s house. 

The children stood inside the door and waited, 
but he never looked up. “Come on,” said Kit, 
as, holding Addison by the hand, they walked leis- 


200 CHILDEEN OF LAST CENTURY 


nrely across the room, till she stood close by their 
grandfather; then she said in a loud and cheerful 
voice: 

^‘Good-moming, Galfer; weVe come to see 
you! ’ ’ 

‘‘WeVe come to see you!^^ echoed the ever-obe- 
dient Addison. Grandfather was fond of old- 
fashioned things, and the name ‘‘Gaffer’^ was so 
delightfully inappropriate that he encouraged the 
children to use it when they spoke to him. 

‘‘Oh, youVe come, have you?’’ he said, taking 
oif his spectacles and turning himself in his heavy 
revolving chair toward the children. “And how 
are you, my dears ? Did you sleep well after your 
long journey?” 

It did not take long to install a child on each 
knee. Addison gazed at him in adoring silence, 
but Kit hastened to unbosom herself of her wrongs. 
“I’ve come to complain!” she began with dignity. 
“They’ve only laid lunch for you in the dining¬ 
room. Now I know you’d like our company. 
Mother said we were to keep you company—^will 
you give orders about it?” 

Gaffer seemed duly impressed, as he said: “I 
will give orders at once. Of course you are to 
have lunch with me while you are here. It’s a pity 
it’s so wet for your first day, but it’s nice to think 
that those dear people are going further and 
further away from the fogs and damp. It will do 
mother so much good to be in a warm climate, and 
you must try not to feel dull without them.” 

“I wish they’d taken me!” said Kit. “I love 
hotels!” Gaffer looked at her and laughed: 



A THROW BACK 201 

‘ ^ What a traveled little person yon are! I never 
slept in a hotel till I was seventeen.’’ 

‘‘Ah, bnt that’s long ago. People go ahont more 
now, and, you see, we have to go with the regi¬ 
ment. ’ ’ 

“To go with the regiment,” echoed Addison. 

Kit conversed affably with her grandfather for 
some time; she told him who were her favorite 
officers, and which her favorite puddings. She 
carefully explained that, as she was four years 
older than Addison, she went to bed an hour later, 
and that she intended to spend that hour in her 
grandfather’s society. She expressed her appro¬ 
val of the study as a room, but thought it was a 
pity that, owing to the large number of books, 
there was no space for any pictures on the walls. 
Addison stared about him in solemn silence, till 
at last Gaffer suggested that, as he had got to 
write to mother, they had better go back to the 
nursery till lunchtime. Then they trotted across 
the room together, but when they reached the 
door and Kit had gone out, Addison raced back 
and stood by his grandfather’s chair, whispering 
breathlessly: “Will you let me see some of the 
books some day—^wivout Kit?” There was a pas¬ 
sionate eagerness in the question which startled 
Gaffer. He looked down at the imploring, up¬ 
turned face. 

And then ‘ ‘ a strange thing happened. ’ ’ It was 
no longer Addison, his namesake, that he saw; it 
was himself. Himself of sixty years ago. There 
he stood, the quaint, serious-eyed boy, whose por¬ 
trait hung in his dead wife’s dressing-room. The 


202 CHILDEEN OF LAST CENTUEY 

boy who longed for books, and who had asked the 
same question of a scholar in an Oxford library, 
on a long-forgotten morning all those years ago. 
With a sudden rush of gratitude he remembered 
how the question had been answered, and though 
his smile was very pleasant, his voice was a trifle 
husky as he said: 

‘‘Assuredly!’’ 

“ Wivout Kit ? ’ ’ persistently questioned the little 
boy. 

“Without Kit, I promise,” repeated Gaffer. 
Then he and Addison shook hands, and Addison 
followed Kit. 

She was waiting in the hall. “What did you 
say to Gaffer?” she asked inquisitively, but Ad¬ 
dison shook his head. He could keep his own 
counsel even when coerced by pinches. 

At lunch Gaffer inquired: “Addison, can you 
read?” 

“Not well!” answered Kit. “He can’t read 
well; he’s only doing ‘sequel,’ and he’s six. He’s 
very backward!” 

“I asked Addison, my dear,” said Gaffer, in 
gently reproving tones. 

Addison blushed and held down his head; then 
he said: “I don’t like what I read; it’s so unin¬ 
teresting. They ask such silly questions, over 
and over again.” 

“He knows heaps of poetry!” said Kit mag¬ 
nanimously. “He can learn anything when he’s 
heard it once, and he knows pages of verses, and 
psalms, and that, but he’s no good on horseback. 
He’s got no nerve. Had says he’ll never be any 


A THROW BACK 203 

good across conntry! ^And lie’s afraid of tlie 
dark!” 

^‘Are yon not nervons?” asked Gaifer. 

‘‘Me nervons!” said Kit with great scorn. “I 
can ride dad’s chargers!” 

“Ah, yon’re like yonr mother,” said Gaffer, 
smiling at her. “Now I, I was never any good 
across conntry; bnt yet I haven’t fonnd that it has 
alienated my friends, or done me any great damage 
in life. Has Addison begnn Latin?” 

“Oh, no; Miss Mercer doesn’t teach Latin, and 
he’s far too backward in other things to begin.” 

“I began Greek when I was his age,” said Gaf¬ 
fer dreamily; “bnt there’s no reason why Addison 
shonld not begin Latin. He shall begin it with 
me.” 

Addison flashed np to the roots of his hair; then 
he scraihbled off his seat—a most nnheard-of pro¬ 
ceeding in the middle of Innch—and ran ronnd to 
his grandfather. He threw himself npon him, ex¬ 
claiming : “I love yon; oh, how I love yon!’’ 

Kit regarded him with astonished eyes. That 
Addison, who never kissed anybody bnt mother, 
who was so nndemonstrative, so slow to show feel¬ 
ing, shonld behave in this extraordinary manner, 
becanse he was told he might have Latin lessons, 
was to her incomprehensible; and Gaffer seemed 
to approve, for he lifted Addison on to his knee, 
and said in snch a qneer voice: “I think we’re 
rather of a kidney, yon and I; we ’re going to nn- 
derstand each other nncommonly well,” and Ad¬ 
dison sat enthroned on Gaffer’s knee all the rest 


204 CHILDREN OF LAST CENTURY 


of lunch, and shared his cheese. Kit felt injured. 

When Gaffer went hack to his study he sat down 
before the fire, and he pondered for a long time 
over his queer little grandson. Then he gave his 
shoulders a shake and sighed: was a disap¬ 

pointment to my father, and he II be a disappoint¬ 
ment—he is a disappointment—poor little chap, to 
his. He is unaccountably like me.’’ 

A lonely child was Addison. The fact that he 
was always called Addison from the time he 
ceased to be baby was proof enough. A child who 
is understood gets a nickname. Kit had fifty. 
Addison was always called by his baptismal name. 
It was Gaffer’s name, and Gaffer’s grandfather 
had been called after a gentleman who wrote 
poetry and things. Little Addison knew that much, 
and he wondered if the writings of that far-away 
Mr. Addison were more interesting than ‘^Step 
by Step.” Addison was called an ‘‘old-fashioned 
child”; he was not very sure precisely what that 
was, but that it was something a child ought not 
to be, he was convinced. Kit was pretty, very 
pretty; so the officers said, not infrequently to 
Kit herself. Kit was never afraid of anything by 
day or by night. Kit always spoke the truth; Ad¬ 
dison had been known to prevaricate when he was 
frightened, and he was often frightened—at noth¬ 
ing at all. Kit said. 

But the worst and most unforgivable thing 
about Addison was this: he had no wish to be a 
soldier—and said so. The sound of a pop-gun 
caused his heart to thump against his breast in an 


A THKOW BACK 


205 


unpleasantly violent manner, and a review was to 
him a prolonged agony that made him ill for days. 

His mother—^whom he worshipped—and who 
loved him tenderly, was qnite unconscions of his 
many sufferings. She was absolutely devoid of 
nerves herself, and thought that Addison would 
grow out of his ‘‘delicacy,” as she called it. She 
was proud of his remarkable resemblance to her 
father, whom she admired above all mortal men— 
hut she was disappointed; and poor Addison, with 
the quick intuition of childhood, was perfectly 
aware of it—at his being what her husband called 
“such a Molly.” 

So it came about that Kit was always brought 
forward, and Addison kept in the background— 
to his own satisfaction certainly, but very much 
to the detriment of Kit. 

Edinburgh, where the regiment was stationed, 
was too cold for mother, and dad obtained leave 
to take her to the Eiviera for the worst months; 
so Kit and Addison were sent to Gatfer, and for 
Addison it was the turning-point of his life. 

To most people, their initiation into the acci¬ 
dence of the Latin language is not a very happy 
recollection. To Addison it is a recollection little 
short of rapturous. 

To him the first pages of a Latin grammar call 
up the picture of a large, old-fashioned room, 
flooded with a mellow light like that of the sun 
through a veil of yellowing beeches. There is a 
goodly smell in the room, the smell of dressed and 
well-kept leather. The walls are lined with books, 
books bound in calf and russet-colored Russia, and 


206 CHILDREN OF LAST CENTURY 


in the middle of the room stands a knee-hole table 
both deep and wide. It, too, is covered with books; 
but here they lie open, one upon the other, a crowd 
of witnesses to the tastes of the owner of the 
room. That gracious owner! Addison’s eyes 
grow dim as he thinks of the spare upright figure 
seated in the revolving chair; the keen scholarly 
face and noble white head. He hears again the 
kind, cultivated voice ever ready to answer ques¬ 
tions, to answer them so fully and so beautifully, 
with such a tender sympathy for the eager child¬ 
ish questioner. And then Addison goes down on 
his mental knees and thanks his God that as yet 
he had brought no look of sorrow into those kind 
eyes, but many a look of pride and joy. 

Is there not one shelf in that library devoted to 
Addison’s prizes? And the row is lengthening by 
leaps and bounds. Yet they wonder at Winchester 
why he should be so fond of classics^ 


THE INTERVENTION OF THE DUKE 


I 

ENTER WIGGINS 

THe Reverend Andrew Methven stood at his 
stndy window gazing out to sea. The sea was very 
bine, the sands yellow and smooth, bnt it was not 
the sea that the Reverend Andrew saw. 

Elgo, on the Fife coast, is growing fashionable. 
In summer every house is let, and there are some¬ 
times as many as fifty bathers at once in the bay. 
At Elgo the bathers usually wear blue serge, 
adorned it may be by red or white braid. Pale 
blue silk with white facings and short sleeves is 
not the usual uniform. It impressed the Reverend 
Andrew, and consequently he stood and stared. 
Moreover, the wearer of this wonderful creation— 
he felt it was a ‘‘creation,” though he had never 
heard the word so used—came out of the house 
next door to the Manse, the house being that of 
his most worthy parishioner, Mrs. Urquhart, 
Baker and Confectioner, who let her rooms during 
the summer months. 

Elgo streets are somewhat one-sided, the town 
being built upon the cliff with a railing near the 
outer edge for the protection of the unwary. 

207 


208 CHILDEEN OF LAST CENTURY 

The vision in pale blue silk tripped down the 
steep steps cut in the rocks, and ran across the 
sands. She was followed by a small thin boy, 
whose freckled face was broad and good-natured. 
On the sands they took hands and danced into the 
water together. 

The vision was tall and slim, with wonderful 
arms that flashed white in the June sunshine, and 
the minister remarked that she could swim mag¬ 
nificently. The little naked boy splashed after her, 
looking like a terrier as he shook the water from 
his crop of curly hair. 

The minister’s window was open, and across the 
sunlit sands came the sound of a woman’s voice, 
crying: ‘‘Come on, Wiggins, get on my back, and 
I’ll swim with you to the Cock’s-tail Rocks!” 

The Reverend Andrew swung his telescope into 
position; he had the grace to blush as he did so, 
but none the less did he eagerly follow that swim¬ 
mer by its aid. She did it, there and back; then 
she and the small boy ran dripping over the sands 
and vanished through Mrs. Urquhart’s side door. 

An hour later the minister (he was the Free 
Kirk minister really; there is an Established 
Church in Elgo, but as its pews are empty and its 
incumbent of small account, he was “the minis¬ 
ter” to Elgo) strolled into Mrs. Urquhart’s shop 
to buy cookies. Mrs. Urquhart herself bustled 
forward to serve him. 

“You’ve let your rooms, I see, Mrs. Urquhart! 
And early in the season, too! ’ ’ 

“Yes, sir! I’ve let my rooms, and to my own 


THE INTEEVENTION OP THE DUKE 209 


young lady that I was nurse to; you’ll mind my 
telling you of Sir John Penherthy and his bonny 
family. Well, Mrs. Burton is just my Miss Mary, 
married and widowed too, poor lamb, and she and 
Master Wiggins have come all the way from Lon¬ 
don to be with me, and it’s proud I am to have 
them!” Mrs. Urquhart paused breathless. 

The minister murmured something sympathetic, 
and taking up his bag of cookies strode back to 
the Manse. ‘ ‘ Mary, mother of names, ’ ’ he thought, 
as he turned over the information he had received. 
‘‘Widowed! She doesn’t wear much mourning 
anyway!” as he thought of the blue silk bathing- 
dress. Then he said with a sigh, “She is very 
beautiful! ’ ’ and sat him down to write his Sunday 
sermon. 

In the afternoon he met Wiggins on the beach: 
that gentleman was digging while a French bonne 
kept guard in the rear. 

“Do you like Elgo?” asked the minister. He 
had a kindly way with children; he was rather 
child-like himself, and they knew it. 

“Awfully,” answered Wiggins, patting his 
castle walls, and barely looking up. 

“Have you ever been to the sea before?” 

“Oh, dear, yes; haven’t you?” 

“I live here,” said the minister, rather discom¬ 
posed by this exceedingly cool child. 

“I wish I did!” sighed Wiggins. “I hate Ken¬ 
sington. ’ ’ 

“Ah, that’s London! I’ve never been there,” 
said the minister simply. “I wish I had.” 


210 CHILDEEN OF LAST CENTUEY 


not a very nice place. There’s gardens 
and busses, and sometimes we ride in a hansom, 
and yon always have to wear yonr shoes and gen¬ 
erally gloves, it’s beastly.” Wiggins spoke bit¬ 
terly, as one who had tasted the hollow shams of 
Kensington. 

The minister sat down on the sand. 

‘‘Isn’t there a mnsenm there, and an Art Gal¬ 
lery?” he asked. 

“Oh, yes, bnt yon mayn’t tonch anything, and 
yon have to wear yonr hat! ” 

“Yon seem to object to clothing,” remarked the 
minister. 

“Don’t yon?” responded this discomposing 
chdd. 

“Well, no, I can’t say I do. It’s warm, 
and-” 

“Oh, it’s warm enough in Kensington, if that’s 
what yon want!” and Wiggins tnrned to dig a 
fresh channel from his castle to the sea. 

“M’sien Wiggins, il fant aller a la maison ponr 
le the. Faites vos adienx a M’sien le Cnre!” and 
Madeleine, the pretty French bonne^ folded np her 
crochet, and rose. 

Bnt Wiggins was smitten with deafness, and 
waded deeper into the water, with a seraphically 
nnconscions look. 

Madeleine went down to the water’s edge, where 
she disconrsed volnbly for abont five minntes. The 
minister sat watching; he wondered why French 
people speak so fast, and whether Wiggins nnder- 
stood. He evidently did, for he answered deris¬ 
ively, and sat down snddenly in the water. Then 



THE INTERVENTION OF THE DUKE 211 


he came out, and grinning at the minister, re¬ 
marked gleefully as he took his dripping way 
homeward: 

‘‘That’s the third pair to-day, soon shan’t have 
any left to wear. What a rux! ” 

‘ ‘ So that’s a London child! ’ ’ mused the minister. 
“He’s a fine frank lad; I must caU upon his 
mother.” 


n 

A NEW ATMOSPHERE ' ' 

But the days went on, and the minister did not 
call. He was a sociable fellow, much beloved by 
his fisher folk, and by such summer visitors as 
knew him. Elgo was his first ‘ ‘ charge. ’ ’ Had he 
been small, instead of six-foot-three, he would 
doubtless long ago have been dubbed “The Little 
Minister,” after Mr. Barrie’s immortal hero, for 
he was young as a minister can be. 

He did not call on Mrs. Burton because he had 
conceived for her an extravagant admiration, or 
rather adoration. He met her constantly on the 
beach and in the village street, and on these occa¬ 
sions gravely lifted his hat. Had he followed his 
impulse, he would have gone down on his knees 
and begged leave to kiss her feet. We do not fol¬ 
low our impulses in these matters nowadays, and 
Mary Burton never wondered why he did not call, 
for she thought about him not at all. 

She did not go to church that first Sunday, but 
played with Wiggins on the beach all the morn- 


212 CHILDKEN OF LAST CENTURY 


mg, Mrs. Urqnhart was scandalized and sug¬ 
gested the Episcopalian church at Pittenweem; 
but Mary only put her arms ronnd her old nnrse 
and laughingly promised to come and sit in her 
pew next Sunday. 

The minister progressed in his friendship with 
Wiggins; while Mary was scouring the country on 
her bicycle, Wiggins and his new friend played on 
the beach or fished for poddlies from the rocks. 

Madeleine with the inevitable crochet sat on the 
beach and beamed at them. 

‘‘You’re a Presbyterian, aren’t youf’^ asked 
Wiggins abruptly of the minister one afternoon. 

“Yes, I’m a member of the Free Kirk.” 

“Oh, you’re Free Kirk, and Madeleine’s a Ro¬ 
man Catholic, and mother and me is Pagans!” 

“Pagans?” echoed the minister in astonished 
tones. 

“Well, mother says so. It means that you love 
the sun, and the sea, and bare feet and meringues 
and music-halls and things!” 

‘ ‘ Pagans, music-halls! ’ ’ The minister gazed in 
horror at the unconscious but breathless Wiggins. 
“Do you mean to say,” he asked solemnly, “that 
you do not know anything about our Saviour who 
died for us?” 

Wiggins turned and looked at him with some¬ 
thing of reproachful scorn on his broad freckled 
face; then he said slowly: “Of course, I know, 
but we never talk about that to strangers, mother 
and me. It is bad form, like the people who give 
you tracts in busses.” 


THE INTERVENTION OF THE DUKE 213 


“I beg yonr pardon, I misunderstood,’^ said 
the minister. 

They were silent for a few minutes, during 
which the minister digested this, to him, new view 
of confessing your faith before men. 

Although he himself never gave tracts either in 
busses or anywhere else, he had certainly in a sort 
of hazy fashion considered that to do so was 
praiseworthy, if mistaken. 

‘^There’s mother!” announced Wiggins sud¬ 
denly. ‘‘Let’s come and talk to her.” 

The minister scrambled to his feet, and in an¬ 
other moment he had shaken hands with Mrs. Bur¬ 
ton, and they all sat down on the beach together. 

Wiggins did most of the talking, and then it 
began to rain. 

“Will you come in and have a cup of tea with 
Wiggins and me ? ’ ’ asked Mrs. Burton. 

The minister felt that no words at all expressed 
the rapture with which this proposal filled him. 

Mrs. Urquhart’s parlor looked so different that 
afternoon. Many photographs stood on the man¬ 
telpiece, books other than albums or Family 
Bibles were scattered on the table, papers and 
magazines strewed the horsehair sofa, while on 
the mantelpiece among the photographs and the 
little vases full of roses were the ends of many 
half-smoked cigarettes. Another shock was in 
store for the minister. 

They had tea; he drank three cups and ate end¬ 
less scones in order to prolong the meal. To sit 
opposite to Mary and watch her white, heavily 
ringed hands flit in and out among the cups as she 


214 CHILDREN OF LAST CENTURY 

made tea was a wonderful thing. To listen to her 
as she praised Elgo, and Scotland generally, in her 
soft Southern voice was wonderful; but most won¬ 
derful of all was to gaze at her unrebuked, to 
drink in the beauty of her face, to note the gra¬ 
cious line of cheek and chin as she turned her head, 
and lose himself in the depths of her eyes, brown 
as the trout stream beyond Glen Dynoch. When 
at last some small consciousness of material things 
awoke in him and he rose to go, Mary reached to 
the chimney-piece for a slim tin box. 

‘ ‘ Will you have a cigarette ? ’ ’ she asked. ‘ ‘ Dear 
Mrs. Urquhart forgives my evil habits, and pre¬ 
tends she thinks that I smoke for asthma. I don’t 
look asthmatical, do I?” 

‘‘Thank you,” faltered the minister. “I do not 
smoke now—I gave it up after my student days, 
just as I gave up drinking anything, for the sake 
of my people. I daresay it was useless, but I 
thought it was right—then.” 

He spoke diffidently, humbly, half expecting a 
flash of amused scorn in her, such as he not infre¬ 
quently encountered in Wiggins. But Mary held 
out her hand, saying softly: 

“I am sure it was right then, and is now; but 
don’t judge me hardly, for I have no flock to influ¬ 
ence. My boys will smoke, anyhow, when they 
are big.” 

“It is kind of you not to laugh at me,” he said, 
and with that took his leave. 

Mary lit her cigarette and smoked thoughtfully 
for some time. Wiggins was once more searching 
for treasure on his beloved beach. She sat at the 


THE INTERVENTION OF THE DUKE 215 


open window and watched the boats come in. Pres¬ 
ently she rang the bell for Mrs. Urquhart. When 
that good lady appeared, breathless from her 
ascent of the steep little stairs, Mary pushed her 
into an armchair and sat down at her feet, with 
her head against the old woman ^s knees. 

‘‘Amuse me, nursey; tell me about your min¬ 
ister. Where does he come from! How is it that, 
without having been anywhere or seen anything, 
he is such a perfect gentleman, and why—oh, why 
is he a Free Church minister?’’ 

“And what for no, my dearie? He’s an excel¬ 
lent, well-doing young man. You should hear him 
preach; it’s just wonderfu’. His father’s a doctor 
near Aberdeen; bein’ douce people they are—a 
large young family, and all doing well. He was at 
the college in Edinburgh, and passed very high. 
But it’s no his learning that we care about, it’s his 
kind, friendly ways. He’d take his turn nursing 
a body that’s sick just like one of the family; and 
he’s just a wonderful way with young men. To 
be sure, he’s young himself—only just twenty-six 
—but he’s not a bit bumptious or puffed up, like 
many young men. He’s greatly set up with Master 
Wiggins; they’re grand friends.” 

“He has been very kind to Wiggins. I’ll ask 
him to dinner. Will you cook me a very nice din¬ 
ner, nursey dear, on Thursday evening?” 

“He’ll no come then, my dearie, for it’s prayer¬ 
meeting night. I just wish you’d go yourself.” 

“I’ve never been to a prayer-meeting. What’s 
it like ? What happens ? ’ ’ 

“It’s just beautiful, my dearie; and the gentry 



216 CHILDEEN OF LAST CENTUEY 

go too. Mrs. Braid, of Elgo House, she always 
goes.’’ 

Mary made a little face. ^‘She called upon me 
yesterday. I didn’t find her very exciting. I’ve 
got to dine there to-night, so I suppose I must 
dress. You might send Madeleine to do my hair. 
Dear nursey, I’d far rather stay with you than 
go to Elgo House.” 


m 

‘‘all secret shadows and mystic sights” 

Dinner parties at Elgo House were not, as a 
rule, exciting. The conversation generally vi¬ 
brated between the harvest prospects and the 
game prospects, with somewhat numerous flashes 
of silence, during which each guest madly racked 
his brain for a fresh topic of conversation, only to 
fall back finally upon the weather. 

Andrew Methven did not expect to enjoy him¬ 
self much on that particular evening. His pres¬ 
ence at Elgo House was something of an anomaly, 
for the family were “established” by conviction, 
yet Mrs. Braid attended the Free Kirk because 
she liked Andrew’s sermons. 

He felt rather as though he were poaching on 
his neighbor’s preserves when he went there. He 
liked his brother cleric (as he liked most people), 
who, if old and somewhat dull, was kindly and 
human. So long as his evening pipe and toddy 
were forthcoming with regularity the “estab¬ 
lished” minister recked little if he preached to 



THE INTERVENTION OF THE DUKE 217 


empty benches. Andrew Methven felt the blood 
rush to his face as on entering the Braids’ draw¬ 
ing-room he heard that voice which had been ring¬ 
ing in his ears ever since his parting with Mary 
that afternoon. 

Daylight lasts long in the North Country, and 
there were no candles needed at Elgo House for 
dinner. Mary sat opposite the minister, and had 
he been given to cursing he would have cursed the 
tall epergne of fruit that hid her from his sight, 
especially as the majority of her remarks were 
addressed to him. 

The only other guests were an elderly colonel 
and his wife, who were staying at the hotel. The 
colonel, whenever he looked at or spoke to Mary, 
seemed by his very atmosphere to ejaculate ‘‘Mon¬ 
strous fine woman,” and Andrew felt an insane 
desire to choke him there and then in his own 
high white collar. 

Dinner over, they all strolled into the garden, 
and then that happened which made an epoch in 
Andrew Methven’s life. 

When they had all duly admired the roses and 
the goodly promise of peaches on the south wall, 
some one brought a guitar out of the house and 
Mary sat down to sing. 

Her dress, some soft transparent blackness over 
white, faded into the shadows among which she 
sat. Somehow it reminded Andrew of the silver 
birch trees in the copse beyond. She bent her 
head as she tuned the guitar, and the throb of the 
strings seemed an appropriate background to the 
sweetness of her profile. Vision and sound be- 


218 CHILDREN OF LAST CENTURY 

came indissolubly mixed. Andrew could never 
afterward separate Mary’s face from her voice, 
and both were irresistibly a part of the beech 
copse seen dimly in the evening light. The whole 
making a picture, subtle, detached, vivid; an ex¬ 
perience in which all the senses bore an equal part 
and were indistinguishable. 

Mary’s voice was a big, soft contralto, as unlike 
the usual ‘‘drawing-room voice” as it is possible 
to be, and she sang seriously. She gave her mes¬ 
sage to the four winds to be carried where they 
listed. She sang to the scented night, to the dis¬ 
tant sea, to the flowers and the moonlight: not to 
the little handful of human beings, whose chairs 
creaked as they sat, and who, saving one, only 
realized that she was a beautiful woman who had 
a fine voice. 

They thanked her when she had finished, all but 
Andrew, who, white-faced and dumb, gazed into 
the deepening shadows as he stood by Mary’s 
chair. 

“It’s really most extraordinary to be able to sit 
out at night in June in Scotland, is it not?” said 
the colonel’s wife in his ear. He started, looking 
at her stupidly. ‘ ‘ A very absent young man! ’ ’ she 
said to herself. 

Truly he was absent, for he had been in heaven. 

Mary, too, was silent, softly beating out a faint 
melody on her guitar as it lay across her knees. 

Suddenly she looked up at Andrew, saying un¬ 
der her breath: “The rest may reason and wel¬ 
come, ’tis we musicians know!” 


THE INTERVENTION OF THE DUKE 219 


‘‘The rest” did not Hear, or hearing did not 
understand; bnt Andrew said: “Thank God!” 

The coloneFs voice was heard declaring that it 
was “dencedly chilly,” and everybody made a 
move to go indoors, except Andrew, who, pleading 
work, fled down the drive, only to walk for miles 
aimlessly in a direction leading further and fur¬ 
ther from the Manse. 

Had he but known it, that walk was symbolical 
of the rest of his life. When he did get home his 
rather ancient “evening shoes” were quit worn 
out. 


IV 

THE EDUCATION OF THE MINISTER 

‘ ‘ The Duke is coming at the end of the month, ’ ’ 
announced Wiggins to the minister, as they an¬ 
chored and fished for poddlies in the bay. 

“What Duke?” 

“My brother; he’s at school at Leamington; he’s 
going to Eton in three years. He’s ten, four years 
older nor me. ’ ’ Wiggins was a model of concise¬ 
ness in the way he imparted information. 

“Why do you call him the Duke?” asked the 
minister in rather an abstracted voice; he was 
watching a tall lady on the distant links. 

‘ ‘ ’Cause he is one; his name’s Marmaduke, and 
he is a tremenjous Duke; they all say so.” 

“Who are theyf^^ 

“Oh, mother, and uncles, and boys, and people.” 

“Is he like you?” 


220 CHILDEEN OF LAST CENTURY 

‘‘Not a bit; he’s handsome; he’s exactly like 
mother. ’ ’ 

The minister smiled. Was Mary handsome! he 
wondered. For many days now he had forgotten 
to take her beauty into account. He never com¬ 
pared her with other women. She was not to him 
more beautiful, not more clever, not more kind 
than other women; she was simply what that 
Frenchman said of his lady—she was mieux 
femme. There was no one else. 

“Are you very fond of your brother?” asked 
the minister, forcing himself to attend to Wig¬ 
gins. 

“I’m glad he goes to school,” replied that gen¬ 
tleman guardedly. “He rather bangs me about.” 

“Is Wiggins a family name?” abruptly de¬ 
manded the minister. 

“You are a jokey man,” said Wiggins admir¬ 
ingly. ‘ ‘Why, it’s because of my hair they call me 
that; my name’s Tregenna—‘Tre, Pol, and Pen,’ 
you know. Mother’s Cornish. ’ ’ 

At this moment Wiggins had a bite, therefore 
excitement reigned for the next five minutes, and 
even the advent of the Duke was forgotten. 

Did Mary Burton know what she was doing 
when she admitted this obscure Free Kirk min¬ 
ister to friendship and intimacy? Did she realize 
how contact with her kindness, her simplicity, her 
gentlehood, was making him every day more hope¬ 
lessly her slave? In after years, when he walked 
in darkness, with a hunger that nothing appeased, 
Andrew would ask himself this question, and 


THE INTERVENTION OF THE DUKE 221 


whichever way he answered it he blessed her. He 
no more thought of blaming her than the sailor 
thinks of tracing the storm to the evening star. 

‘‘She shall have worship of me,’’ he said in those 
early days of wonder and happiness. “She still 
has worship of me,” he said after years of un¬ 
satisfied longing and ceaseless pain. 

There was a song that Mary used to sing, a 
song he loved, written by a man for whom and for 
whose writings in those youthful opinionated days 
Andrew felt a hatred that was almost fear. Yet 
the song dominated him, and in after years he 
would repeat it to himself with a curious fierce 
sense of possession. 

0 brother, the Gods were good to you. 

Sleep, and be glad while the world endures. 

Be well content as the years wear through; 

Give thanks for life, and the loves and lures; 

Give thanks for life, 0 brother, and death. 

For the sweet last sound of her feet, her breath, 

For gifts she gave you, gracious and few, 

Tears and kisses, that lady of yours. 

Again across the silence he would hear Mary’s 
voice; again would he see against the evening sky 
her delicate pale profile and the little head 
weighted with its coils of shadowy hair; accom¬ 
panying it all, the soft plash of the waves as they 
rolled over the sands beneath her window and the 
sharp salt wind which sighed foreboding things. 
• •••••• 

“No! I won’t sing any more to-night; let us 
talk,” said Mary. 

The weather had turned unkindly, a bright fire 


222 CHILDREN OP LAST CENTURY 


flickered on the hearth, while the rain outside 
drove and pattered against the rattling windows. 
The minister had come in ^‘for some music’’ as 
had become his habit during the last weeks, but, 
Mary was in no mood to sing, so she laid the guitar 
aside. 

‘‘You told me that you intended to criticize my 
sermon of yesterday,” said Andrew deferentially. 
“I gather that you altogether disagree with me.” 

Mary lit a cigarette and smiled at him, her own 
indulgent smile, which always softened the severity 
of her remarks. “Yes, I think your view is nar¬ 
row, and in some respects unjust. Of course, I 
know it is the kind of sermon that is popular; 
and it is certainly kind to the novelists to abuse 
them from the pulpit—it increases the sale of their 
books so enormously. But that was hardly your 
object, was it?” 

“I do not know what was my object, unless it 
were to deliver a message that I felt had been en¬ 
trusted to me. I do feel strongly on this question. 
It seems to me so pitiful that people should waste 
their time in reading injurious trash, when all the 
time there waits in silent patience the great com¬ 
pany of the Immortals.” 

“I like Schumann’s view best. He says, ‘Rev¬ 
erence what is old, but have a warm heart also for 
what is new. ’ Much that is new is true, and beau¬ 
tiful, and helpful.” 

Mary leant forward, looking eagerly through a 
little cloud of smoke at the minister. 

He shook his head. “A great deal is hopelessly 
false, and ugly and lowering.” 


THE INTERVENTION OF THE DUKE 223 

\ 

‘‘I think yon overrate the influence of had 
books,’’ said Mary. ‘‘It is only the great books 
that live; a meretricious book may have a few 
months’ popularity, and then no one reads it any 
more, it is forgotten as absolutely as we forget 
the smell of decaying cabbage when we have passed 
the rubbish heaps.” 

“But surely you will allow that there is a great 
badness as well as a great goodness. Look at 
those Frenchmen; you cannot say their work is 
good, but it certainly will live, because it is great.” 

The minister spoke earnestly. He hated that 
she should think him narrow; but he had the cour¬ 
age of his opinions. 

Marv was silent for a minute, then she looked at 
him and smiled, saying frankly: 

“That is true; but I believe that in all genius 
there must be something of goodness. We are all 
going to heaven, and De Maupassant is going too.” 

“I would like to think they are all going, but it 
seems to me some of them have much to answer 
for. Influence is an awful responsibility. I be¬ 
lieve it is the one thing for which we shall have 
to give the strictest account.” 

Mary looked grave. “Do you think that people 
always realize when they have influence?” 

“No, not always; they do not certainly realize 
the extent of their influence. You, for instance, 
were you less noble-minded, might do incalculable 
harm, for you never think about the effect you 
produce at all.” 

“Oh, please don’t be so seriously compliment¬ 
ary,” she exclaimed. “To pose as ‘a good influ- 


224 CHILDEEN OF LAST CENTUEY 


ence’ would be too dreadful! I should feel like 
seven curates rolled into one. Confess now, 
though, that you always thought a liking for cigar¬ 
ettes was the sign in a woman of moral obliquity, 
now, didn’t you?” 

Andrew blushed. ‘‘I have seen very little, and 
known few interesting people,” he said modestly; 
‘‘none from your world.” 

“How far we are getting from your sermon on 
modern literature; that is what we were going to 
talk about. ’ ’ 

“I spoke as I felt; I daresay I am wrong, but I 
can’t feel wrong yet. It may be that I overesti¬ 
mate the influence of books; but you see, in my 
case, books have been the only great influences I 
have known—until lately,” he added softly. 

Mary looked into the fire in silence for a few 
minutes, then she said: “Never judge a man by 
one book any more than you would judge him by 
one single act, but be grateful when you come 
across any piece of work that you like. It always 
seems to me that we render so little gratitude to 
the people who give us so much pleasure, and it 
must be sad for them.” 

She threw the end of her cigarette into the fire, 
and stood up, holding out her hand. 

“I must send you away, for it’s half-past ten, 
and we are early folk here.” 

Andrew bowed over the fair kind hand, and 
went back to his study at the Manse. Here there 
was no fire, no genial smell of smoke, everything 
was orderly, cold, and dull. Andrew sat down by 
his writing-table, and laid his head down on his 


THE INTERVENTION OF THE DUKE 225 


arms. Truly the thoughts of youth are long, long 
thoughts. 

A sleepless night is interminable at six-and- 
twenty. At forty, one takes it as something that 
has to be got through, probably with the aid of 
chloral. 


V 

MABY 

There are people who can stir up the worst that 
is in us; that strange, inherent moral obliquity, 
which few are so happy as to be without, but 
which most of us bury under our strivings after 
things lovely and of good report. When success 
crowns the efforts of these moral dredgers, and 
they are generally as successful as they are per¬ 
severing, they stand aside, apparently aghast, and 
proceed to cry shame’’ noisily upon our deprav¬ 
ity. These are they who ‘‘compound for sins they 
are inclined to” by damning, not “those they have 
no mind to,” but such sins as at the time they 
happen to be tired of. 

There are others, thank God for it, with whom 
intercourse is a sort of festival, not merely be¬ 
cause their own outlook is so generous and kindly, 
but because they rouse what is best in one’s self. 
One leaves such friends—they are friends if you 
have met them once—strong and gay and full of 
belief in the infinite possibilities of life. 

Mary Burton was of this latter class. She made 
no great sacrifices, she enjoyed her life thoroughly. 



226 CHILDREN OF LAST CENTURY 


taking eagerly all pleasure that came in her way; 
hut her temper was generous, her mind broad, and 
because she herself could not understand mean¬ 
ness, she never suspected others. She was seldom 
disappointed. It is the narrow little soul who so 
constantly encounters other narrow souls. The 
simple, kindly people meet with simplicity and 
kindness. 

Perhaps the fact that their outlook was so simi¬ 
lar proved the great bond between Mary and the 
minister of Elgo. Their upbringing and environ¬ 
ment were so absolutely dissimilar, their views of 
life so unlike, yet beyond it all and through it all 
sounded the same note, dominating the discords 
and making harmony. 

‘‘He’s such a lovable good fellow,” Mary would 
say to herself. “One forgives him for always 
using shall and will in the wrong places, and for 
denying himself everything that some people think 
makes life endurable.” 

“She is so kind and gracious, so dignified with¬ 
out being haughty, so absolute an aristocrat in all 
her beautiful ways; she is a princess. What does 
it matter if she does smoke and read French 
novels? If she does it, it must be right for her.” 
So argued the minister, though he kept his own 
sturdy Scottish opinion with regard to the un¬ 
wholesomeness for ordinary digestions of some of 
the literature which Mary affected. 

So the days went on and these two lovable good 
people saw more and more of one another, wor¬ 
shipper and worshipped, and although the parties 
mainly concerned preserved the ostrich-like blind- 


THE INTEKVENTION OF THE DUKE 227 


ness of people in their condition, the ‘‘summer 
visitors’’ of Elgo and the parish itself took a lively 
interest in their doings and waited with a some¬ 
what impatient expectation of the climax. 

One thing struck Andrew Methven as curious: 
in all their many conversations Mary had never 
mentioned her husband. She talked frankly of her 
father and her brothers, of the people she had met 
in India, and of those she was in the habit of meet¬ 
ing in London, but of her husband, never. An¬ 
drew found himself wondering what manner of 
man Captain Burton had been; but it never oc¬ 
curred to him to try to find out anything about 
Mary or her surroundings. He never spoke of her 
to anyone, and winced if anyone spoke of her to 
him. About his own family and his own “past,” 
if so uneventful life can be said to have a past, he 
was most frank. 

“My people are what you would call ‘nice 
middle-class’ people, perhaps a little fonder of 
books than their sort are in England, but you have 
never met anybody of that kind except me, and 
you would not find them congenial.” 

Mary made a little face. “I’m sure I never 
spoke of anybody as a ‘nice middle-class person,’ 
I shouldn’t be such a snob, and I have met all sorts 
of people—people you would think Bohemian and 
terrible! ’ ’ 

“I should like to meet literary people,” said 
Andrew wistfully, “but I suppose I never shall.” 

‘ ‘ Oh, yes, you will, and you won’t find them any 
more interesting than your Fifeshire fisher folk. 
Epigrams pall upon you when they form the staple 



228 CHILDEEN OF LAST CENTUEY 


commodity of conversation. The somewhat dingy 
jonmalist, who has a trick of smart talking and 
who poses to himself as everything he is not, is 
jnst as great a bore as the respectable city clerk 
who lives at Hornsey and expatiates npon its ad¬ 
vantages. You must not mistake cleverness for 
genius. The one is often merely the result of en¬ 
vironment and atmosphere. The other nearly 
always appears in unlikely and seemingly impos¬ 
sible places. You know what Swinburne says: 
‘There is only one thing we may reverence, and 
that is genius. There is only one thing we may 
worship, and that is goodness.’ ” 

“It seems to me,” said Andrew thoughtfully, 
“that you reverse it. You reverence goodness 
and worship genius! ’ ’ 

“Perhaps I do, certainly and perhaps fortu¬ 
nately, the one is much rarer than the other. The 
best things in life are the commonest. There are 
flowers, and children, and love, and friendship 
for everybody, if they will have them.” 

“And death and disillusion.” 

“You, turning pessimist. Padre mio! This will 
never do. You are too serious—far too serious. 
I prescribe a course of Anthony Hope immedi¬ 
ately. I have the ‘Dolly Dialogues’ with me, and 
you must force yourself to appreciate them. It’s 
plain you have met with little real tragedy in your 
life, or you would be more cheerful.” 

“Have you a tragic past, that you are always 
gay?” 


THE INTERVENTION OF THE DUKE 229 


Mary shivered, but she did not answer. She 
called to Wiggins to come out of the water, for it 
was growing cold. 

The minister scourged himself for four hours 
aftervmrd, for he noticed that she was pale, and 
that there were shadows under her brown eyes. 
What had he said? 


VI 

MARY^S HUSBAND 

Mary had gone to play golf at St. Andrews. The 
minister called on Mrs. Urquhart anent some 
parish matters and she detained him, rather 
against his will, to talk of Mary and her perfec¬ 
tions. She never spoke of her except as ‘‘My Miss 
Mary,’’ and it was apt to bewilder the uninitiated. 
Suddenly she asked the minister: 

“Does she ever talk to you of the wee girlie 
who was killed?” 

“What wee girlie? Never!” 

“Eh, it was just an awful thing. Sit down, Mr. 
Methven, and I ’ll tell you. ’ ’ 

“But, Mrs. Urquhart, do you think if it is so 
sad, and if she—Mrs. Burton never told me her¬ 
self—that she would like-” 

“Tuts, sir! It’s nothing disgraceful; it’s just 
fearfully sad. Ye can only admire her the more 
for her courage. Well, as I was saying, she had a 
wee girlie just three years old when they all came 



230 CHILDREN OF LAST CENTURY 

home from India on long leave. Master Wiggins 
was the baby, and Miss MoUy was the bonniest 
creature you ever saw. The Captain—a fine, free¬ 
handed gentleman he was, if a wee thing wild— 
was just wrapped up in her, the boys were no¬ 
where ; and he would aye go and fetch her out o ’ 
her cot every evening after dinner and play, and 
nothing Miss Mary could say would stop him. 
Well, that August they had taken a house down in 
Cornwall to be near Miss Mary’s father. And one 
evening Miss Mary had gone to dine with an old 
aunt some miles off, and the Captain and a gentle¬ 
man staying dined alone. It is thought that the 
Captain may have taken rather much champagne 
—he did whiles—but anyway he went and got Miss 
Molly out of bed and wrapped her in a blanket 
and carried her out of doors. It was no use for 
the nurse to say anything—he was a masterful 
gentleman, and brooked no interference. The 
other gentleman had gone to write letters in the 
study. Well, Miss Mary came home about ten, and 
of course went straight up to the night nursery. 
The little boys were both in bed asleep, but Miss 
Molly’s cot was empty, and the nurse told her the 
Captain had not brought her up to bed yet. Miss 
Mary was rather indignant, for she thought it so 
bad for the child, and went down to fetch her. 
But the Captain was not in the study, and the 
other gentleman had not seen him since dinner. 
He seemed rather alarmed when he heard that 
Miss Molly was missing, and everybody went out 
to search the garden, for they were nowhere in 


THE INTERVENTION OF THE DUKE 231 


the house. They sought and sought, and nothing 
could they find. Then Miss Mary sent the grooms 
out with lanterns, and she and the gentleman took 
the carriage lamps and went down to the foot of 
the garden where the cliff went sharp down to 
the sea. There was a steep path cut in the cliff, 
and down this they went. At the bottom, lying on 
the hard rock, they found the Captain, with Miss 
Molly in his arms quite dead, and his back was 
broken. He lived for three days, and he died 
with his hand in my dear lady’s. She never spoke 
one word of reproach; but he didn’t need it, poor 
man; his grief was terrible to see, they say. He 
must have stumbled and fallen sheer over. It’s 
six years ago now; my young lady was only three- 
and-twenty. Eh, it was a heavy sorrow for a 
young thing like that!” 

Mrs. Urquhart’s voice broke, and she stopped. 
The minister was very white, he held out his hand 
to her, but did not speak. The Scotch understand 
each other. They have realized this great truth— 
that some things are unsayable. The minister 
held good Mrs. Urquhart’s hand in both his for 
two silent minutes, then he took his hat and went 
his way. 

“He’s a grand young man yon!” said Mrs. 
Urquhart to herself, “he’ll make it up till her.” 

But the young man in question felt that he was 
further off than ever from his divinity. The wall 
of unshared experience is high and impassable; 
we may break it down in places, but it stretches its 
gaunt length along life’s highway and we each of 
us must keep to our own side. 


232 CHILDREN OF LAST CENTURY. 


VII 

‘‘beside the idle summee sea’^ 

“I rather like that minister person/’ said the 
Dnke to Wiggins in his most patronizing voice, 
“he seems a decent chap.” 

“He is,” ejaculated Wiggins with immense con¬ 
viction; “he’s a splendid chap —n bit Scotchy, you 
know, but he’s awfully kind. ’ ’ 

“The mater likes him too, doesn’t she?” 

“Oh, yes. He’s always with us, you see, living 
next door and that. He knows all the best places 
to fish, and he can build the most splendid castles 
with moats and secret passages and no end!” 

The Duke turned his handsome head and smiled 
indulgently at Wiggins. “I bet he can’t shoot or 
play cricket much, or ride anything but a bike. 
You can’t remember father, Wiggins; he was a 
soldier, you know, and he used to say: Ride 
straight, shoot straight, and speak the truth, and 
you’ll be a gentleman, sonny.’ An officer and a 
gentleman. I remember though it’s so long ago.” 

The Duke’s eyes grew soft. He had loved that 
big handsome father of his with the uncompre¬ 
hending, admiring love of a little-noticed child. 
The little daughter had been everything to Captain 
Burton, yet the Duke cherished his memory and 
rendered him a devotion greater than that he gave 
to the mother who understood him; a devotion 
which Mary took care should never be disturbed 
by any word of hers. 


THE INTERVENTION OF THE DUKE 233 


As Captain Burton lay dying he had lifted his 
weak arms and dragged her head down close to his 
face. 

‘‘Don’t tell the boys,” he whispered. “Let 
them think the best of me. Dnke is a fine chap; 
he’ll make it np to yon. I’ve been a beast and a 
fool, bnt I always loved yon, Mary. Promise yon 
won’t tell the boys.” 

And Mary promised. 

The Dnke was a singnlarly handsome hoy, with 
grave, heantifnl manners. He never looked nntidy 
or slovenly. Like his mother, he wore his clothes 
in snch a way that he always seemed better and 
more snitably dressed than other people. He was 
rather a silent person, bnt gave one the impression 
that he was silent from choice, not becanse he had 
nothing to say. 

He was very nnmistakably a member of the 
“classes,” and thongh exceedingly nrbane and 
gracions to what he was pleased to call mentally 
his “inferiors,” he was so becanse it wonld be nn- 
gentlemanly to be otherwise. 

He wonld gravely assist a fishwife to raise her 
heavy creel to her shonlders, and lift his cap to 
her with a Hyde Park flonrish when she started on 
her way. Bnt he did so becanse he considered it 
the dnty of a gentleman to assist women—not as 
Wiggins wonld have done, from a friendly interest 
in that particnlar fishwife. Slim, tall, and aristo¬ 
cratic, with oval face, straight nose, and big brown 
eyes, the Dnke was a noticeable boy anywhere, and 
Mary was immensely prond of him. 

He was good at most games, and qnick to learn. 



234 CHILDEEN OF LAST CENTUEY 


He ferreted out a pony in the next village and 
rode about the country, to the admiration of the 
natives. He golfed on the gentlemen links and 
played a very good game for his age. He went 
fishing with the minister and Wiggins, and he 
bicycled with his mother. 

Since the advent of her eldest boy, it seemed to 
the minister that there was a certain remoteness 
about Mary. Certainly her time was very much 
taken up. The Duke required other amusements 
than those afforded by the beach, a bucket, and a 
wooden spade. He expected and received the con¬ 
stant companionship of his mother. On several 
occasions the minister was allowed to join their 
bicycling expeditions. To watch Mary bicycle was 
a never-ending wonder to him. She never seemed 
to go fast; it was only when you rode after her 
that you found she was hard to catch. The min¬ 
ister always wondered why her skirts never seemed 
to bunch and blow as did those of other women. 
He knew nothing of tailors as a great artistic 
power, but he was keenly alive to the result of 
their labors in the grace and symmetry of her 
appearance. 

The Duke also was a constant surprise, but for 
him the minister’s frank admiration was tempered 
by a subtle but searching discomfort in his so¬ 
ciety. 

‘‘Do you know,” He said ruefully one day to 
Mary, “that the Duke makes me conscious of my 
boots, and the lack of trees to keep them on? I 
never thought of it before, but I am sure now that 
it has been a serious omission.” 


THE INTERVENTION OF THE DUKE 235 


‘‘The Duke is the descendant of generations of 
dandies, and has all the faults and the good quali¬ 
ties that belong to the class. In many respects the 
dandy is a limited person both for good and evil; 
certain social solecisms are, of course, impossible 
to him, but he generally is lacking in imagination. 
The Duke, for instance, is less sympathetic than 
Wiggins, but he is harder on himself also.’’ 

“Can a woman be a dandy?” inquired the min¬ 
ister in a tone of grave interest. 

Mary laughed. “Every woman of the world is 
more or less a dandy, but she takes the position 
less seriously than does a man. If in some direc¬ 
tions our sense of proportion is undeveloped, it 
has arrived at perfection in matters of clothes.” 

“I’m glad I can only wear one sort of clothes; 
it saves so much trouble, and I should be certain 
to get the wrong ones.” 

“I think you would. Be thankful for your uni¬ 
form; it is becoming!” 

“It’s very hot and uncomfortable in summer. 
I almost feel I could echo Wiggins in his abuse of 
clothing.” 

“Why don’t you wear flannels?” 

“I do for tennis, but one can’t call on one’s 
parishioners in flannels; they’d think it casual 
and disrespectful.” 

“So they would. Well, you must dree your 
weird!” Mary spoke lightly, but for the minister 
her last words had an ominous sound. 

Presently they all halted “to give the bicycles 
a feed” as the Duke put it—the fact being that 
they had arrived at the foot of what was for Fife 


236 CHILDEEN OF LAST CENTURY 


a very steep hill. The day was hot, and they had 
six more miles to do before they reached the East 
Neuk, whither they were escorting the Duke. 
Grass and the shade of trees looked inviting. 
Mary and the minister decided to rest, bnt the 
energetic Duke went otf on an exploring expedi¬ 
tion in an adjacent wood. 

The minister and Mary sat quite silent for some 
minutes; then Mary said slowly: 

‘‘Mrs. Urquhart told you of my great trouble 
six years ago. I am glad. I wanted you to know, 
and I wanted you to know that I am glad. ’ ’ Her 
voice was very soft, her eyes were bent on the 
grass. 

Andrew Methven looked at her but he did not 
speak. 

She looked up a little surprised, and saw his 
face working strangely. She understood. 

“Don’t try to say anything,” she said, laying 
her hand on his arm. “You are sorry. You are 
a good friend of mine.” 

Somehow the touch of the little gloved hand on 
his arm made the minister lose his head. He did 
not attempt to hold it in his own—his reverence 
for her was too great for that—^but he told her 
simply and forcibly what he felt for her. She did 
not try to stop him. The sunshine and the summer 
had got into her blood, and this worship that was 
offered to her was sweet and precious. There was 
nothing ridiculous in it, nothing impossible. He 
did not ask her to be his wife; in his wildest dreams 
of happiness he had never reckoned on the possi- 


THE INTERVENTION OF THE DUKE 237 


bility of that. He did not ask to be anything to 
her; all he told her was what she was to him. 

And in the very middle of it all the Duke came 
back, saying: 

‘Hf we are to get to the East Neuk by teatime, 
we’d better be off; it’s four already.” 

So they rode off, and very silent companions the 
Duke found them. 

• •••••• 

Seven years before in Simla, Mary had had a 
great success. She had been made much of, and 
had enjoyed it. Many men had made love to her, 
and she had enjoyed it. A beautiful, healthy girl 
accepts admiration as her natural right. 

But the men who made love to her did not enjoy 
it, for many of them had the misfortune to be 
serious, and although Mary accepted their flowers 
and their compliments and their devotion in her 
own gay, gracious fashion, she gave nothing in 
return but that gay graciousness and the privilege 
of her society. 

‘Hf she were in love with that card-playing, 
drinking fool, her husband, I could understand it,” 
said Major Molyneux of the 42nd; ‘‘but she isn’t 
in love with him, not a bit; and yet she’s an icicle 
to every other chap. It’s not as if she were one of 
those cold, saint-in-a-shrine sort of women; she’s 
as human as she can be. She’s no fool, either. 
What, in heaven’s name, made her marry her hus¬ 
band ? ’ ’ 

“Calm yourself, my dear Molly! Calm your¬ 
self,” answered the elderly civilian to whom he 
was unburdening himself. “You have yet to learn 


238 CHILDEEN OP LAST CENTUEY 


that the selective faculty is latest of development 
in women. Most women, especially if they are 
pretty, marry before it has developed at all. If 
they are good as well as pretty, they take care it 
shan’t develop afterwards.” 

‘‘Burton hasn’t even the grace to be jealous; he 
lets her do just what she pleases. He’s so mighty 
conceited that he never seems to think she may 
come across a man capable of understanding her. ’ ’ 

The commissioner smiled. “I don’t think much 
of Burton’s intellectual capacity, but I do give 
him credit for this—^he understands his wife, and 
because he understands her, he trusts her abso¬ 
lutely. It’s no use, my dear boy, Simla will never 
have the pleasure of discussing Mrs. Burton in 
connection with any sort of scandal; she’s not that 
kind! ’ ’ 

The commissioner was right. Her husband 
never had reason to find fault with Mary, and since 
his death she had devoted herself to her boys and 
to the cultivation of her mind. She took it as a 
matter of course that men should fall in love with 
her; they always did. But her experience did not 
make her eager to investigate further the realms 
of marriage. 

Men made love to her because they wanted to 
possess her. She was so tired of hearing, “Don’t 
you understand? I want you for myself, for my 
very own.” 

Mary understood, but as yet she had felt no 
desire to belong to anybody in that exclusive 
fashion. 

Andrew Methven touched her. Here at last was 


THE INTERVENTION OF THE DUKE 239 


the Princely Giver she had dreamed of, as women 
will dream, the man ready to give everything, ask¬ 
ing only for leave to lay his homage at her feet, 
nothing more. 

When she had first met him, she set him down 
as one of those who are destined ‘Ho do some¬ 
thing. ’ ’ It was not his fate to remain an obscnre 
Free Kirk minister, of that she was snre. The 
more she saw of him the more she felt the reality 
of the strange power that lay behind his appar¬ 
ently commonplace views of men and things. “It 
is there,’’ she said to herself exnltingly, and now 
that he had made love to her in this strange, nn- 
usual way, she was seized with a passionate desire 
to take this man into her life, and help him to 
give form and substance to that latent force of 
his. 

So Mary dreamed dreams while she listened to 
the minister as he discoursed upon the historical 
interests of the East Neuk; as they rode home 
swiftly and for the most part silently; as, the 
Duke having gone to bed, she sat at the open win¬ 
dow and watched the moonlight on the sea. 

Then she went and looked at the boys in their 
two little straight beds side by side. As she bent 
over the Duke he smiled, and threw his arm round 
her neck, murmuring sleepily, “Dear mater.” 

Shading the candle with her hand, she looked 
long and greedily at the sleeping children, and, like 
all women at such moments, the triumphant sense 
of possession swamped every other feeling. 

As she reached her own room and stood before 
her glass, she looked into the reflected eyes, say- 


240 CHILDKEN OF LAST CENTURY 


ing: ‘‘Take ship, for happiness is somewKere to 
be had!’’ 


vin 

THE COLONEL INTEREEEES 

“There’s little Bnrton. I’ll ask him if it’s true,’^ 
ejaculated Colonel Colquhoun, as he noticed three 
or four small red-coated figures coming down the 
long slope at the far end of the gentlemen’s links. 

“No, not the child; I would not ask the child if 
I were you, Colquhoun.” Mr. Braid spoke earn¬ 
estly, laying his hand on the colonel’s arm to detain 
him. “He may know nothing about it, you know, 
there may be nothing to know. In any case I 
wouldn’t ask the boy.” 

But Colonel Colquhoun had just made an in¬ 
ferior drive, he was in a bad temper as are many 
people during the royal and ancient game, so he 
bustled off, ignoring his friend’s remonstrance, 
toward the putting-green where the Dulm was tri¬ 
umphantly holing in after a specially brilliant 
placing of his ball. , 

The caddie shouldered the colonel’s clubs, and 
Mr. Braid followed more slowly. He felt a curi¬ 
ous disinclination to join the little group on the 
putting-green. His own lad—just home from 
Fettes—^was one of the players; he had said kind 
things of the pluck and perseverance of little Bur¬ 
ton. Mr. Braid’s heart was tender, and he him¬ 
self had not forgotten the moment when he first 


THE INTERVENTION OF THE DUKE 241 


heard of a possible stepfather. He walked more 
and more slowly. 

The hole that the Duke and his friends were 
playing was the last on the links; the boyish figures 
were outlined sharply against the sky. Mr. Braid 
saw the Duke lift his cap as the colonel came up. 
He could not hear what passed, hut he saw the 
four boys turn, and one after another tee their 
halls and drive. The colonel was left alone on the 
putting-green, where his ball was not. The caddie 
stood grinning, and the colonel cuffed his ears, 
declaring that the young ruffian had stolen his 
hall. 

Mr. Braid waited in patience till the ball was 
discovered in some distant bents, but the colonel 
did not again mention little Burton or his mother. 

The Duke was playing abominably. Halfway 
home he said: ‘‘Braid, would you think me an 
awful cad if I break up the foursome ? I can T play 
a hang. ’ ^ The child’s lips were quivering, and his 
sunburnt cheeks looked white under the tan. 

Braid put his arm round his shoulders affection¬ 
ately. “You go home, old chap. You’re hipped, 
but never mind that old beast Colquhoun, he’s 
always making mischief. Don’t you notice him.” 

“I didn’t—much, did I?” the Duke asked anx¬ 
iously. “I hope I didn’t—show.” 

“Not you—not a bit. Here, scoot! I’ll bring 
your clubs.” 

The Duke broke into a run, and regardless of 
the enraged “fores” which sounded on every side, 
made straight across the links to the rocky shore. 
There he would be alone—alone with this terrible 


242 CHILDREN OF LAST CENTURY 


possibility that flashed its lurid light across his 
path. 

Once behind the rocks he sat down and sobbed, 
even as he did so wondering when he had cried 
before. The Duke did not ‘^blub’’—^never—^he 
considered tears unworthy of a man, ‘‘of an offi¬ 
cer and a gentleman,” had not the father whose 
memory he adored once said to him: “Curse if 
you like, old man, but never cry.” So the Duke 
never cried, though his language on occasions 
would have surprised his mother by its forcible 
variety. Before ladies, though, “gentlemen do 
not swear,” so Mary remained in blissful ignor¬ 
ance of her son’s proficiency in certain forms of 
objurgation. 

Now, however, the Duke sobbed, great tearing, 
dreadful sobs that racked his slender body with a 
pain that was almost physical. 

The colonel had done his work. As he walked 
across the green to enlighten Duke, he had said to 
himself: “I’ll make it hot for Mrs. Burton, 
haughty minx; the boy’s a tartar.” 

Mary had found it necessary to snub the colonel 
on more than one occasion; so he no longer called 
her ‘ ‘ a monstrous fine woman. ’ ’ A fancied slight 
rankles in the mean and narrow soul; revenge is 
doubly sweet if one near and dear to the offender 
can be made the instrument of punishment. 

The Duke sat behind the rocks and sobbed until 
he felt sick and stupid. Had he not heard of that 
horrible institution called a stepfather? Had he 
not read only last holidays a book called “David 


THE INTERVENTION OF THE DUKE 243 


Copperfield/’ wherein the iniqnities of such an one 
were set forth with terrible distinctness. 

He was not a religions child. Mary was not 
dogmatic in her teaching, she influenced more by 
her example and her mental attitude than by con¬ 
scious effort. Yet here and now the boy felt that 
circumstances were too strong for him, and he 
prayed in a hopeless, muddled fashion that if his 
mother did this thing, God would take him to join 
the father she seemed to have forgotten. 

It is a mistake to think that children never come 
face to face with despair. They do, more often 
than the superior, omniscient grown-ups them¬ 
selves. There is a finality about every sorrow for 
children, they cannot realize that such pain as 
they feel can pass; they do not believe it. That 
saddest of all poets must have thought of sor¬ 
rowing children when he wrote: 

We are most hopeless, who had once most hope, 

And most beliefless, who had most believed. 

What matter if the grief be short, its poignancy 
while it lasts is none the less acute. 

The Duke stopped crying, and looked at the bare 
wall of rock before him with hopeless, unseeing 
eyes. Then as he prayed, a great wave of tender¬ 
ness, of longing for his mother, broke over his 
child soul, and he got up. Scrambling over the 
great boulder he had hidden behind, he set off to 
run home. If this amazing, this shameful news 
were true, he would set a seal on his misery, and 
uncertainty would be at an end. If it were false. 


244 CHILDEEN OF LAST CENTUEY 

the Duke set his teeth as he thought of the colonel, 
then he squared his shoulders and dropped into 
the swinging run which made him such an ad¬ 
mirable hare at ‘‘hare and hounds.’’ 

He ran by the beach, a good three miles, and 
burst into their little sitting-room, tear-stained 
and breathless, just as Mary had arranged her 
writing-board on her knee. 

She looked up in astonishment at his somewhat 
noisy entrance. He still wore his cap in the room, 
before her, and his face was dirty. Who had seen 
the Duke with a dirty face since he arrived at 
years of discretion? 

“My darling boy, what has happened? Is it 
Wiggins? Is he hurt?” Mary stood up in her 
excitement, and the paper and envelopes were 
scattered about the floor. 

The Duke only looked at her, his lips trembling. 

“Speak, Duke, what is it? Don’t keep me in 
suspense. ’ ’ 

“No one is hurt, mother, except me, and I’m 
only hurt in my heart.” The tears ran down his 
cheeks as he spoke. “Mother, is it true—are you 
going to marry Mr. Methven? Oh, say it isn’t 
true. It’s so dreadful!” 

Mary drew the boy to her, and sitting down she 
took him on her knee. He buried his dirty face in 
her neck and sobbed. 

“My dearest, who has said that I am going to 
marry Mr. Methven? Surely you do not suspect 
me of telling people—other people—before I 
would tell you such a thing as that 1 Oh, Duke, I 
thought you trusted me.” 



THE INTERVENTION OF THE DUKE 245 


‘‘But, mother, you might not have told them, 
they might have guessed, and iUs not the not know¬ 
ing that I mind, it’s—^it’s—Mr. Methven!” 

“Dear Duke, did it never strike you as possible 
that I might marry again?” 

“Never! Never! You belong to Wiggins and 
me—and father. Have you forgotten father?” 

“No, sonny, no. I have not forgotten.” 

“Oh, mother, say it isn’t true, say it isn’t true, 
or I shall die!” 

Mary folded the boy closer in her arms. “It is 
not true, dear. Mr. Methven has not even asked 
me to marry him. ’ ’ 

As she spoke she remembered her own words as 
she looked into the glass the night before. Her 
face grew very sad. 

“But if he did ask you, mother, you would say 
no? You would say no?” 

The Duke’s voice, husky with long crying, was 
very pathetic. 

Mary leaned back in her chair and closed her 
eyes. She held her boy very close, and her breath 
came quickly. 

“I don’t think he will ask me, dear, but if he 
does, I must say no, for his sake!” 

The Duke sat up and gazed at his mother in 
absolute amazement. 

“For his sake,” he repeated in a hushed, almost 
frightened voice. “Do you want to marry him, 
mother?” 

“It does not matter much what I want to do, my 
little son; it’s what I must not do that we have to 
do with. I shall not marry Mr. Methven. Some 



246 CHILDEEN OF LAST CENTUEY 


day when yon are a man yon will realize what I 
have given np for yon—and for him! ’ ’ And Mary 
fell a-weeping with her hoy clasped in her arms. 

The Dnke felt her hot tears on his short-cropped 
hair, and he trembled; then, releasing himself from 
his mother’s arms, got off her knee and stood be¬ 
side her, very pale and grave. 

^‘Dear!” he said solemnly, ‘‘if yon want to 
marry this—gentleman—if it will make yon hap¬ 
pier, yon shall. Do yon hear, darling? Yon 
shall.” And throwing himself into his mother’s 
arms, they cried together. When it came to the 
point, he fonnd that he loved his mother better— 
than himself. 

Presently Mary began to langh. “Oh, Dnke, 
Dnke, how fnnny yon are! Yon talk as if I were 
a little girl, as if—^bnt it doesn’t matter—some 
day yon will nnderstand. ... It’s not going to 
happen, Dnke dear. It’s been a storm in a tea- 
cnp. Yon mnst never listen to what ignorant 
people say.” 

“May I contradict them, politely?” asked the 
Dnke eagerly, with an immense relief shining in 
his eyes. 

“Certainly, if anyone has the impertinence to 
speak of snch a thing again. It is an insnlt to Mr. 
Methven and to me. Oh, Dnke, there’s somebody 
coming npstairs. Qnick, go and say I’ve got a 
headache and can’t see people.” 

It flashed across the boy’s mind that he was 
not very presentable either. However, the stair¬ 
case was dark, and he shnt the sitting-room door 


THE INTERVENTION OF THE DUKE 247 


behind him. A tall, black-coated figure was as¬ 
cending the stairs. 

‘‘Mother canT see anyone to-day, Mr. Meth- 
ven; she’s got a headache.” 

But even as he spoke the door at the top of the 
stairs opened, and Mary said: 

“I’ll see Mr. Methven, sonny, but ask Mrs. 
Urquhart to say I am engaged if anyone else 
calls. ’ ’ 

The sitting-room door closed behind the min¬ 
ister and Mary. The Duke Avent to his own room 
to wash his face, and to ponder over his mother’s 
words. 


IX 

VALE 

Somebody has said that women have no sense 
of humor. It is one of those knock-me-down asser¬ 
tions that provoke argument. The sense of hu¬ 
mor is so blessed a gift, it were unjust indeed to 
deny its benefits to the larger half of humanity. 
The gods had bestowed it with no niggardly hand 
upon Mary. It had stood her in good stead dur¬ 
ing many a crisis; its divine attribute did not de¬ 
sert her now. 

There was a poetic justice in the appearance of 
Andrew Methven at that particular moment that 
appealed to her sense of aristic inevitability; and 
as Andrew shut the door behind him, though the 
tears shone wet upon her cheeks, she laughed. 


248 CHILDREN OF LAST CENTURY 


‘‘I am sorry you have a headache/’ began An¬ 
drew lamely. ‘‘Shall I go away!” 

“No, sit down; I want to talk to you. I’ve just 
been through a somewhat trying scene with the 
Duke, and I long that somebody should horsewhip 
Colonel Colquhoun.” 

“I don’t possess a horsewhip, but I have a good 
stout stick. ’ ’ The minister’s manner was most un¬ 
clerical as his grasp tightened on the weapon in 
question. 

“You do not even ask what he has done.” 

“He has annoyed you—that is quite enough; 
but I wish he was a younger man.” 

“He is not young enough to thrash, and he is 
not quite old enough to ignore; all the same, we 
shall have to ignore him. But, you Quixotic per¬ 
son, would you really thrash a man because I asked 
you to?” 

“If you asked me to thrash a man, I should know 
he well deserved thrashing, and I—should en¬ 
joy it.” 

“You’re more man than minister, after all,” 
said Mary, more to herself than to him. 

“Better man, better minister. Do you think I 
could have had any sort of influence over my col¬ 
liers at Cowdenbeath if I couldn’t fight? I can’t 
fence, but I can box. I’ll teach the Duke, if you 
like.” 

“Why don’t you ask me what Colonel Colqu¬ 
houn has done?” 

“Because if you want to tell me, you will tell 
me; and if it is unpleasant to you to tell me, why 
should you?” 


THE INTERVENTION OF THE DUKE 249 


“It^s as unpleasant as it is necessary I should 
tell you, because we must both publicly contradict 
a foolish report that has got spread abroad in 
Elgo to the effect that we are to be married.” 

Mary did not blush as she spoke, but the min¬ 
ister crimsoned to the roots of his hair. ‘‘I am 
too sorry you should have been subjected to this 
annoyance. You know what my feeling for you 
is; you also know that I have not the right to ask 
a fisher lass to marry me. I am nothing, and have 
nothing; but you have let me lay my great love at 
your feet.” 

Mary made a little sound, half sob, half laugh, 
and held out her hands to him in a helpless, un¬ 
seeing way that went to his heart. He caught them 
in his own, and looking into the dear face with 
purple shadows painted by tears under the eyes, 
he knew that she, too, cared. 

What does it avail to tell in words how these 
two plighted their troth, that was to be ever un¬ 
fulfilled ? The tenderest and truest of lovers have 
generally small literary value. 

For half an hour they went to heaven together. 

Then they faced realities, and Andrew asked: 

‘ ‘ Will you write to me ? ’ ’ 

Mary shook her head. ‘‘No; if we write we 
shall simply waste our lives in everlasting watch¬ 
ing for the postman. We are very human, you and 
I, and how can we hope to be better and wiser than 
other people?” 

“You are hard,” murmured Andrew. “I can 
find no comfort in virtuous soliloquy. A letter 
would be something tangible.” 


250 CHILDEEN OF LAST CENTUEY 


‘‘No, I am not hard; but I am old who once was 
young, and I know. As it is we shall have a per¬ 
fect and unspoiled memory, full of tenderness and 
grace and poetry; hut if we write we shall be 
miserable, ever unsatisfied, hanging, like Ma¬ 
homet’s coffin, between heaven and earth. No; let 
us keep this sweet experience untarnished by im¬ 
potent tears and regrets.” 

• ••«••• 
Three days after, Mary and her boys had joined 
some of the numerous uncles at a shooting-box 
near Kingussie. The Duke was very happy; but 
Wiggins missed his beloved sea. “I think my min¬ 
ister must miss me,” he said. “I miss him so 
very much; he’s such a kind man.” 


PART III 


CHILDREN OP THIS 


m 


■‘ii 


JEAN, A PORTRAIT 


Slie was remarkable in the first place because 
she never rode in a perambulator like other chil¬ 
dren; either she walked—on bare, shapely, pink 
feet—or her own personal attendant, Elspeth (a 
very tall woman indeed), carried her in a plaid 
slung over one of her broad shoulders. Elspeth 
despised the ‘‘bit barrows’’ of the other nurses, 
and was quite strong enough to have carried Jean’s 
mother as well as Jean. “She will go barefoot,” 
Elspeth would say, “till she iss seven, and when 
she iss a woman she will walk like a queen, and 
not like a hen!” 

Jean, if possible, went bareheaded as well as 
“barefoot,” and perhaps that is the reason why 
her hair is so abundant, so curly, so full of golden 
light that in the sunshine it almost makes you 
blink. Moreover, her eyes are big and blue. Sun¬ 
shine and rain, and kind fresh winds have tinted 
her face with the loveliest warm browns and 
pinks; she is not yet five years old, and she can 
dance the sword dance! It is really a great sight 
to see Jean’s pink feet twinkling in and out be¬ 
tween two unsheathed swords of her father’s, and 
he is a proud man. 


253 


254 


CHILDREN OF THIS 


Yet there never was such a ^‘girly’’ girl as Jean. 

She has an enormons family of dolls—for her 
adorers all bring dolls, and they are as the sands 
of the sea in nnmber—she takes a motherly inter¬ 
est in them all, both dolls and adorers, but her 
inseparable companion is one ‘‘Tammy,’’ an an¬ 
cient and dirty-faced rag soldier; with arms and 
legs resembling elongated sansages, a square 
body, no feet, and a head shaped like a breakfast 
‘ ‘bap. ” Not an attractive personality to the nnini- 
tiated, bnt he and Jean were as Ruth and Naomi. 
It is something of a sorrow to her that the exi¬ 
gencies of Tammy’s figure do not admit of a kilt, 
just as she puzzled all last summer in sorrowful 
surprise that her father never once donned the 
uniform she so admires. 

Jean’s people live at a house on the Terrace, 
which has at the back a shady old-fashioned gar¬ 
den with a big square lawn in the centre. There 
Jean’s brothers, Colin and Andrew, played cricket, 
while Jean fielded or drilled her dolls under the 
trees. In the evening, after dinner, there would 
be a sound of men’s voices and an occasional 
thrum of the banjo under those same trees, and a 
cheerful clink of glasses, while men with brown 
faces and trim, well-set heads laughed and rejoiced 
in a coolness that concealed no malaria. 

Jean’s father had a reprehensible habit of bring¬ 
ing her, wrapped in a blanket, out into the garden 
at ten o ’clock at night, when she would be handed 
about from knee to knee like a superior sort of 
refreshment. To be fetched out of bed in this 


255 


JEAN, A PORTRAIT 

fashion would have been upsetting to some chil¬ 
dren, but Jean, with an adorable sleepy smile, 
would make herself agreeable for half an hour or 
so, and when carried back and tucked into bed— 
always by her father—fell asleep again directly, 
and never seemed a scrap the worse. On such 
occasions she was always expected to sing. She 
never sang anything but Scottish songs—^mourn¬ 
ful or martial, mostly Jacobite, and her repertory 
was enormous. While other children were learn¬ 
ing ^‘Little Jack Horner,’’ or ‘‘Hey diddle did¬ 
dle!” Jean, thanks to Elspeth, learned “Hey 
Johnny Cope,” or “Cam’ ye by Athol,” and her 
voice was as the voice of Katherine of France, 
“broken music,” for her voice was music, and her 
English broken. Sometimes a belated passer-by 
would wait outside to listen in wonder to someone 
singing in the clearest baby voice: 

Sing Hey, my bra’ John Hielandman, 

Sing Ho, my bra’ John Hielandman, 

and at the end of each refrain she always kissed 
her father, for there was no one in the world to 
match with him in Jean’s eyes. She absolutely 
declined to sing the last verse after that day upon 
which she discovered what “hanging” meant, 
Colin and Andrew having suspended Tammy from 
the apple tree. At times, Jean could raise her 
voice otherwise than in song, and on that occasion 
the whole Terrace resounded with her shrieks. 

Next door there dwelt a very grumpy gentle¬ 
man. With that easy confidence in a neighbor’s 


256 


CHrLDREN OF THIS 


neighborliness generally manifested by people 
who have lived mnch abroad, Jean’s father, on 
taking np his quarters, had written asking per¬ 
mission to pnt some wire-netting on the top of the 
party wall to prevent cricket balls going over. To 
his immense surprise he received a curt and dis¬ 
courteous refusal, which terminated in a warning 
to the effect that, if balls did come over, there 
they would have to stay, as the writer would in no 
circumstances have boys running in and out of his 
house, and there was no back entrance. Of course 
balls went over; but Colin and Andrew found an 
unexpected ally in Mr. Knagg’s housekeeper, who 
threw the balls back again without consulting him; 
and Mr. Knagg felt rather aggrieved that, as yet, 
he had found no cause for complaint. Complaint 
in some form or other was as the breath of life 
to him; he had gone to law with so many of his 
fellow-townsmen that his society was no longer 
sought after, and his exceedingly clean steps were 
untrodden by strangers. He intended at first to 
complain that the banjo-playing in the garden dis¬ 
turbed him at his studies, when he happened to 
hear Jean sing ‘‘This iss no my plaid,” and some¬ 
how he gave up the idea. 

Colin and Andrew possessed a “mashie” each, 
and a game of “putting golf.” It was reserved 
for Sunday afternoons as being of a quiet and 
decorous nature. 

But one Sunday afternoon Andrew forgot to 
“putt,” and gave his ball a drive that lifted it 
high over the wall into the next garden. Now, the 


257 


JEAN, A PORTRAIT 

wall was too high to climb; besides, the fear of 
Mr. Knagg was upon them, and the housekeeper 
was out—they had seen her go. They had only 
two balls, and it was yet a long two hours off tea- 
time. Father and mother were both out. They 
retired to consult Jean under the trees. 

‘‘If he wasn’t such an old beast, I’d go and ask 
for it myself,” growled Andrew. 

“You wouldn’t get it if you did,” said Colin the 
practical. 

‘ ‘ Why shouldn’t Jean go ? He’d give it to her, ’ ’ 
suggested Andrew, who had noted the weakness 
of his sex where Jean was concerned. 

“Of course he would. You must go, Jean. 
Hurry up! ” 

“WTiat, all on my lonely?” exclaimed Jean in 
pained astonishment. 

“Oh, we’ll come with you to the door and ring 
the bell for you, and then cut away before he can 
open it. Then you ask him nicely. Come on, 
Jean!” 

She seldom long opposed her brothers. She had 
what Elspeth called a “tender head,” and strongly 
objected to having her hair pulled. Between them 
they marched her up the flagged path to Mr. 
Knagg’s front door, rang loudly, and departed 
precipitately. 

Maighda, the great deerhound who shared with 
Elspeth the guardianship of Jean, rose from 
amidst the company of dolls, where she had been 
reposing, and walking gravely into the front gar¬ 
den, jumped the iron fence, and joined Jean at the 
top of the steps. 


258 


CHILDREN OF THIS 


Jean clasped Tammy firmly witli one arm and 
coiled the other round Maighda’s neck as the door 
opened rather noisily to disclose an irate-looldng 
little gentleman in gold-rimmed pince-nez. 

‘Hf you please/’ began Jean, in a still, small 
voice, ‘Hhere iss a wee ball-y wass putted into 
your garden—^will I get it?” 

Mr. Knagg stood staring at his strange visitors, 
while Jean rubbed one pink foot over the other 
and Maighda sniffed at him dubiously. Tammy, 
with his customary reserve, betrayed no emotion 
whatever. 

‘‘Come!’-’ said Mr. Knagg shortly, holding out 
his* hand. As Jean disappeared Colin and Andrew 
flew into the back garden and swarmed up an 
apple tree, whence they surveyed their sister’s 
proceedings with interest. 

“Wonder why men are so much decenter to girls 
than to us ? ” mused Andrew. 

“Oh, well; his housekeeper likes us best, any¬ 
way. Everyone’s got their cranks.” 

“Fore,” cried a clear little voice, and the ball 
fell with a soft “plop” at the foot of the apple 
tree. 

“She throws very well for a girl,” said Colin 
as he dropped onto the grass. “Let’s finish the 
game.” 

“What do you mean by ‘fore’?” asked Mr. 
Knagg. 

“Heads, you know,” said Jean; but her host 
was more puzzled than ever, for he had not even 
a bowing acquaintance with the royal and ancient 


259 


JEAN, A POETRAIT 

game. They stared at each other in silence for a 
minute, then Jean, remembering that one of the 
most important precepts of her clan was to accept 
no service without rendering some return, said 
shyly: ‘‘Will I sing you a song?” 

‘ ‘ Pray do! ” exclaimed Mr. Knagg; and his eye¬ 
glasses flew off his nose, he frowned so hard. 

“My lovers in Germanie—send him hame! send 
him hame! My love’s in Germanie—send him 
hame!” Jean only sang three verses. Elspeth 
never taught her the last two, and when the last 
notes full of longing had died away, she added 
cheerfully: “But he iss at home just now.” 

“Who is?” 

“My father. Nearly all my songs iss about 
father.” 

“Keally!” ejaculated Mr. Knagg, and blew his 
nose noisily. “So that’s Scotch?” 

“All my songs iss Scottish. I promised Elspeth, 
and I will know them all some day. Goot-bye!” 
and Jean, settling Tammy more comfortably on 
her arm, prepared to depart. As she spoke she 
had lifted her face to be kissed, and Mr. Knagg 
kissed her. 

“He iss a dull man,” said Jean confidentially 
to Colin; “but he was douce enough to me.” 

The man in question sat in his favorite chair 
and read his Sunday newspaper upside down. It 
was thirty-five years since he had kissed a child! 

Colin and Andrew were at school, father and 
mother had gone out in the dog-cart, taking 
Maighda with them for the run, Elspeth was iron- 



260 


CHILDEEN OF THIS 


ing frocks, and Jean entertaining Tammy and all 
the dolls at tea on the lawn. Suddenly she threw 
back her head and listened—no one had such quick 
ears as Jean—the color rushed to her face, and 
she scampered across the grass, round by the side 
of the house, and out at the garden gate; bare¬ 
headed, with flying rosy feet, she raced to the end 
of the terrace, and as she ran the sound which so 
excited her grew louder. It was the pipes! 

Would she find ‘Hhe regiment,’’ she wondered? 
Had it come to show what Elspeth called ‘Hhis 
wee stuck-up bit towney” what real John Hieland- 
men were like? Jean pictured the frowning castle 
and windy Esplanade, the steep, stony street, 
flanked by tall grey houses, down which ‘‘the regi¬ 
ment” “in tartan plaid and philabeg” swept with 
swinging steps. That was the setting in which 
she knew her father’s men. How would they look 
in this trim Southern town? And would she dare 
to stop them to ask after her friends ? 

No, it was not a march the piper was playing, 
and very soon she discovered that there was no 
regiment—only a solitary piper playing the “Keel 
Eow,” with a crowd of unkempt children follow¬ 
ing him. 

Jean pushed in among the children, who made 
way for this hatless, shoeless person in some as¬ 
tonishment. 

“He iss not the ‘Forty-second,’ nor the ‘Gor¬ 
dons,’ nor the ‘Seaforth,’ ” said Jean to herself, 
‘ ‘ and why will he wear two tartans ? ’ ’ Then, pull¬ 
ing at the piper’s kilt, she cried shrilly, above the 


JEAN, A PORTRAIT 261 

skirl of the pipes: ‘‘Can yon play ‘Oran an 
Aoig ’ ? ’ ^ 

The piper took the chanter out of his mouth, 
and smiled down at the eager, upturned face, ask¬ 
ing: my dear?’’ 

“ ‘Oran an Aoig,’ ” repeated Jean eagerly. 

“Sorry I cawn’t oblige you, but I never ’eard 
tell of that toon,” and the “Keel Row” sounded 
with renewed and aggressive vigor. 

Jean loosed her hold of the kilt and turned to 
go. There was something uncanny in the speech 
of this piper, and as she looked more closely, a 
certain incongruity in his uniform which chilled 
and disappointed her. The children, however, 
having recovered from their surprise at her sud¬ 
den appearance in their midst, decided to have 
some fun with Jean, and she speedily discovered 
that to be the only shoeless person in a heavily 
shod crowd is to be in a most unpleasant minority. 
Also, she had never been alone in the street before. 

Mr. Knagg heard the pipes on his way home to 
lunch, and having the greatest abhorrence of all 
street noises, holding that they were, every one, 
“disturbing to the peace of His Majesty’s lieges,” 
was hurrying across the road to expostulate with 
the perpetrator of this new outrage upon his ears, 
when he caught sight of a familiar shining in the 
very middle of that rabble of children. He laid 
about him with his white cotton umbrella, pres¬ 
ently emerged from the crowd, bearing a very 
tearful Jean in his arms, and hailed a cab. The 
cab and the dog-cart drove up to Jean’s door at 


262 


CHILDREN OF THIS 

the same moment. Mr. Knagg left Jean on the 
pavement and stalked into his house. 

said he was a douce man/’ sobbed Jean, in 
the safe shelter of her father’s arms; ‘‘but it wass 
a pittence piper, not one of ours at all.” They 
say that she felt the deception even more than 
the bruises on her toes. Her father never man¬ 
aged to thank Mr. Knagg though he called three 
times. 

.•••••• 

‘‘Of course the master’s gone to the war with 
the regiment. He only got six months ’ leave, after 
all, and Miss Jean talks and sings about him all 
day long, and the mistress just listens. But she 
says if Master Colin and Master Andrew were 
older, she’d send them, too; for there’s aye been 
some of our family for the men to follow. ’ ’ Elspeth 
left Mr. Knagg’s housekeeper standing at the wire 
fence, for she “never encouraged clash.” 

In the wintry days her neighbors saw less of 
Jean, as play in the garden was impossible. But 
even then the pink feet splashed bravely through 
the puddles and over the wet stones. 

One evening about six, just as Mr. Knagg was 
turning into the Terrace, a newspaper boy, shout¬ 
ing with raucous voice, proclaimed: “Serious 
British Reverse!” “ ’Ighland regiment trapped 
and cut to pieces!” The old gentleman darted 
across the road, crying: “Stop that infernal din, 
and I’ll buy every rag you’ve got! Don’t come 
down here again, mind! ’ ’ 

He hurried down the Terrace with a great 
bundle of pink papers under his arm. Just out- 


263 


JEAN, A POETRAIT 

side his own house he paused and looked up. 
Jean’s nursery window was open at the top, the 
curtains were not drawn, and the room was full 
of rosy light. Suddenly a child’s voice soared 
into the stillness: 

He’s as brave as brave can be; 

Send him hame, send him hame! 

He’s as brave as brave can be; 

Send him hame! 


Mr. Emagg took his hat and bent his head. 


THE DOLL’S-HOUSE FLAGS (1917) 


To begin with the yonngest. 

‘‘Me an^ the war’s the same age,” said Jasper, 
for Jasper was born on Angnst 4th, 1914. 

Perhaps that was why he manifested snch a 
decided and independent disposition almost from 
his earliest months. 

It may have been that everybody was so bnsy 
he was more thrown npon his own resources than 
are babies in more leisurely times. But whatever 
the reason, he ran about when he was one, talked 
fluently—^if in somewhat impressionistic fashion 
—^when he was eighteen months old, and by the 
time he was two he had attained very definite char¬ 
acteristics. 

Barbara came next, four long years older than 
Jasper. She had a round, rosy face and kind 
brown eyes that readily filled with tears, and her 
little heart overflowed with love and pity for the 
woxmded. 

Alison was quite old when war broke out. She 
could remember times when sweets “were nothing 
so very much—everybody eat them,” when “gen¬ 
tlemen often had two eggs for breakfast and lots 
of other things as well,” when “Mummy could 
buy anything she liked in shops, and nearly every¬ 
body had motors.” 


264 


THE DOLL’S-HOUSE FLAGS 265 


Alison was six when Jasper was bom. 

Tall and pale was Alison, with straight black 
hair that reached her waist. She took the war 
very seriously indeed, and was implacable in her 
conviction that nothing else mattered. She was 
even rather shocked that mnmmy could take com¬ 
fort in the thought that it would probably be over 
before Jasper was old enough to join np. 

Then there was George. 

He was an American and the same age as Alison 
and lived qnite near, though after the unfriendly 
fashion of London, they might never have known 
him but that it happened his mummy and theirs 
worked at the same hospital. 

He was an ‘‘only,^’ and when they first knew 
him went as a day boy to a preparatory school 
quite a long way off; but as time went on and 
transport of every kind became more crowded and 
difficult, he came to do lessons with Alison and 
Barbara. 

Nothing made Barbara so happy as to be al¬ 
lowed to visit the “dear poor ones’’ in the hos¬ 
pital where mummy worked; but when she first 
saw the blind soldiers from St. Dunstan’s and 
they were explained to her, it seemed as though 
she really could not bear the knowledge. The chil¬ 
dren lived on the south side of Regent’s Park, and 
Nannie always took them there for their walks. 

“Will they never be able to see?” she would ask 
piteously. 

“I fear not in this life,” was Nannie’s invari¬ 
able answer. 

“Not anything? Ever?” 


266 


CHILDEEN OF THIS 


‘‘Nothing at aU. But they are very brave, Miss 
Barbara; they donT cry.’’ 

For days after when Barbara met them in Ee- 
gent’s Park, her month would go down at the 
comers, and though she did not actually cry she 
was, as nurse said, “queer and quiet” for a long 
time afterward. Their inexorable doom weighed 
on her little soul, and even her serene faith in a 
kind God and protecting angels and the “tender 
Shepherd” of her prayers was somewhat shaken 
that such a cruel thing could be. Ah! if they could 
only have met Him! He would have “touched 
their eyes” and all would have been well. Per¬ 
haps some day- In the meantime the fairies— 

and she believed in them as firmly as in the heav¬ 
enly hierarchy itself—came to her aid, and by 
some process of reasoning she decided that the 
blinded soldiers were under an enchantment. 
That a wicked ogre, a German ogre, had taken 
away their sight (even as trolls and cruel step¬ 
mothers and evilly disposed fairies blinded her 
favorite heroes in the “Tales from the Norse”), 
but that some day a kind fairy or wise, friendly 
beast would put them in the way of getting their 
eyes back again. Surely among all the animals in 
the Zoo there would be one who knew exactly un¬ 
der what tree in the Park the healing dew might 
be found. 

She never spoke of the St. Dunstan’s men as 
blind, but as the “poor enchanted ones,” to dis¬ 
tinguish them from the “dear poor ones” of the 
hospital, and she would never speak of “Blind- 
man’s Buff,” but always of “Enchanted Buff.” 



THE DOLL’S-HOUSE FLAGS 26Z 


Jasper had learned to salute and was immensely 
proud of himself. Every man in khald or hospital 
blue that came in his way, from brass-hats to the 
most newly joined recruits, received his respect¬ 
ful and ecstatic salutation. Two-foot-six in a 
white Persian lamb coat and white gaiters would 
stand rigidly to attention and bring up a diminu¬ 
tive hand clad in a white glove smartly to his fore¬ 
head. If the man he desired to honor happened 
to be in hospital blue, he then kissed his hand to 
express affection as well as respect. When the 
warrior in question perceived J asper he invariably 
returned the courtesy with empressement. Gen¬ 
erals were most punctilious in this matter, and 
when Jasper saw one coming he would trot for¬ 
ward, plant himself firmly in the line of vision of 
the eyes under the brass hat, and, rosy and tri¬ 
umphant, wait till Nannie came up, announcing 
proudly: fluted fim and he fluted me.” 

Everyone smiled upon Jasper. He was so small 
and round and earnest, and his absurd hair curled 
around the edge of his cap in the most entrancing 
fashion. He knew he was popular and enjoyed it 
amazingly. 

Therefore was he surprised and chilled when 
one day, having as usual trotted ahead of Nannie, 
he stopped opposite two blue soldiers resting on a 
seat in the park and they took not the slightest 
notice of him. 

They seemed to be looking right at him as he 
stood at salute, but they neither ‘‘fluted,” nor 
did they smile or speak. 

Jasper kissed his hand. 


268 


CHILDREN OF THIS 


Still no response. 

He kissed his hand, and blew the kiss right at 
them. 

Puzzled, he looked from one to the other. They 
werenT asleep. Their eyes were wide open, and 
their faces kind and patient, but they didn’t seem 
a bit glad to see him. 

They just took no notice—no notice at all. And 
Nannie came up with the pram. 

fluted ’em,” he said in rather trembling 
tones, quite unlike his usual strong treble, ‘‘but 
they don’t seem to like me.” 

“Eh, what?” said one of the men suddenly. 
“What’s that?” 

Nannie said something hurriedly in a low voice. 
‘ ‘ He’s only two and a bit, ’ ’ she added. Then, “ It’s 
too cold for you to be sitting there. Have you lost 
your bearings?” 

“That’s about it,” said the man who had first 
spoken. “Perhaps you’ll put us on our way. It’s 
time we were getting back.” 

“We’ll go with you. Give him your hand, dear, 
and bring him along.” 

“I did flute ’em,” Jasper said again, feeling 
that an important ceremony had somehow been 
scamped. 

Both the men stood up, and the one who had 
spoken to Nannie jogged his friend with his el¬ 
bow, saying: “And so do we salute you, young 
man,” and they both did. 

The man put down his hand and touched the 
top of Jasper’s Persian lamb cap, and laughed: 

“What a big man! ” he said. 



THE DOLL^S-HOUSE FLAGS 269 


Ajid hand in hand they followed Nannie to St. 
Dnnstan’s. 

‘‘Now you know what it’s like for the poor en¬ 
chanted ones,” Barbara said, taking her hands 
from Jasper’s eyes. 

Jasper looked very solemn. “Poor ’chanted 
ones,” he echoed; “I’ll flute ’em and kiss my 
hand and kirtsey ne ’st time I meet ’em. ’ ’ 

“You talk to them, my dear,” said sensible 
Nannie; “they’ll like that better than all your 
salutin’s.” 

This Jasper was most ready to do at great length 
in his little high voice that the poor enchanted 
ones came to recognize a long way oif. But all 
the same he never failed to “flute and kiss his 
hand and kirtsey.” No signs of respect and affec¬ 
tion could be too much, Barbara said. 

“It’s the worst thing of all, so we must love 
them most.” 

Fairies and angels were inextricably mixed up 
in Barbara’s mind, and when her mother came to 
kiss her good-night on Christmas Eve, she mur¬ 
mured sleepily: “I simply can’t ’astinguish be¬ 
tween God and Father Christmas, so I mus’ just 
let it alone.” 

Even the toys were much affected by the war. 
Jasper’s Teddy Bear wore an expression not un¬ 
like the pathetic puzzled look of his brethren in 
the Mappin Circle, now that nobody threw them 
buns, sat they on their tails never so pleadingly. 
Alison had made him the brassard of a special 
constable, and he always wore it when he went out 


270 


CHILDEEN OF THIS 


with Jasper in the pram. The lady dolls had all 
become V.A.D.’s or bus conductors or window- 
cleaners, and one quite recent acquisition was a 
land girl. 

As for the dolFs house, it wore a martial yet 
festive air, for the flags of all the allies were 
stuck in a tight band of string with which Alison 
had bound it thrice just under the roof. 

It was not a new doll’s house. In fact as doll’s 
houses go it was almost venerable. It had be¬ 
longed to grannie’s mother, and was built in the 
early part of Queen Victoria’s reign. Unlike 
modern doll’s houses, it did not open in front. 
In front it was square and solid, with two large 
windows on either side of the door, which had 
glass panels, and actually opened and shut, and 
there were three oblong windows on the next floor. 
The roof was made of real little slates, with chim¬ 
neys at either end of it. The ground floor was a 
shop, with two black counters that could be taken 
out and dusted, and the walls were fitted with in¬ 
numerable shelves and cupboards. It was a silver¬ 
smith’s shop, and on the brass plates under the 
windows were, on one, ‘‘David Strachan, Silver¬ 
smith and Jeweler,” on the other, “By Appoint¬ 
ment to Her Majesty Queen Victoria.” By which 
it could be seen that it was a Scottish jeweler’s 
shop, for nobody called “Strachan” could be of 
any other nationality. Moreover, there were tiny 
toddy-ladles of various sizes among the stock-in- 
trade. 

Daddy used to tell the children an entrancing 
serial story about the inhabitants of this wonder- 


THE DOLL’S-HOUSE FLAGS 271 


ful house, whereof most of the plenishings re¬ 
mained in their original form, though Mr. and 
Mrs. Strachan, the two shop assistants, and the 
baby, had been renewed from time to time, but 
always as nearly as possible resembling their pre¬ 
decessors. Thus it came about that Mr. Strachan 
had side-whiskers—daddy painted them himself— 
a stock and peg-top trousers, and Mrs. Strachan 
a crinoline and an amazingly slender waist; while 
Jenny, the maid, who slept in a box-bed in the 
kitchen, had a mob-cap and always wore her 
sleeves rolled up. The bedroom of Mr. and Mrs. 
Strachan was much bemuslined, and the parlor 
had green rep chairs and a round table. 

‘‘It’s all of our doll’s house,” Barbara used to 
say. “It doesn’t belong to anyone partickler. 
Grannie said so.” 

“George’s, too,” Jasper always added. He 
couldn’t bear George to be left out of anything. 

And perhaps because George was an American 
he was a little less on his dignity than an English 
boy of the same age. He didn’t despise girls, he 
treated them in a comradely fashion that Alison 
and Barbara greatly appreciated. And Jasper 
adored him, for George realized that a person 
might be not quite three, with nether garments 
so abbreviated as to be almost indistinguishable 
from petticoats, with woolly gaiters and shoes so 
small they refused to make a martial tramp, how¬ 
ever much one tried—and yet the said person 
might possess the most boyish soul in the world. 

Therefore was George made free of the doll’s 
house, and assisted Alison with the serial story 


272 


CHILDREN OF THIS 


which she had taken over since that day, early in 
the war, when daddy went with his Territorial 
battalion to France. 

It was on New Year’s Day in 1917 that George 
brought Alison the American flag for the doll’s 
house. It was a beautiful little silk one, and he 
had selected it himself at Self ridge’s. 

‘H’d like Mr. Strachan should have it,” he said. 
“We want the allies to win. You bet we do.” 

But Alison shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she 
said. “I hate not to take it—I’ll have it myself 
if you like, hut it can’t go on the house. Not yet it 
can’t. America’s not in, you see.” 

“After all,” said George, “we’ve done a good 
hit, haven’t we? Look at my dad—he’s been driv¬ 
ing an ambulance—he gave it himself—ever since 
the beginning of the war, and he’s been wounded.” 

“I know,” Alison answered, “I know all that, 
but”—and her grave little face was set like a 
flint—“you’re not in it yet, you’re not fighting^ 
and only countries that are fighting with us can 
have their flags on the doll’s house. Mr. Strachan’s 
most partickler about that. My daddy’s been 
wounded twice.” 

“Wouldn’t he have it at the back?” Barbara 
suggested. She couldn’t bear people to be hurt, 
and George looked very much hurt. 

“No, thank you,” he said haughtily. “If it 
can’t be put with the others, you needn’t have it 
at all. It’s a great flag.” 

“I know,” said Alison, “and I’m awfully 
sorry. Mr. Strachan would love it the minute 
you’re really in . . . but till you are-” 





THE HOLL’S-HOUSE FLAGS 273 


‘‘We’re in right enough,” George said bitterly, 
“in np to the neck. Mother says so. It’s only the 
President hasn’t said ‘Go’ yet—yon know what 
Governments are, ‘waiting and seeing,’ and all 
that rot. Look at your own! And everybody get¬ 
ting killed all the time.” 

‘ ‘ I know, ’ ’ Alison said. ‘ ‘ But that’s what makes 
the difference. We are getting killed, all the time, 
even here in London.” 

George put the little flag in his pocket. “I came 
to wish you a happy New Year, Alison,” he said 
with an effort to speak pleasantly. “I’ll have to 
get you something else. There’s some little silver 
things for the shop for you, Barbara, and a ma¬ 
chine-gun for Jasper. Perhaps the partickler Mr. 
Strachan wouldn’t mind having that on his roof 
to fire at the Huns when they come over.” 

“Won’t you let me keep the flag?” Alison asked. 
“Then if ever America ...” 

“If ever,” George interrupted scornfully. 
“That’s all you know about it. If you’ll wait 
you’ll jolly well see this time. And you won’t 
wait long!” 

But he kept the flag in his pocket; and that 
night he put it in an envelope to keep it clean. 

George was right. She didn’t have to wait so 
very much longer, for on April 6th, America de¬ 
clared war on Germany, and he appeared directly 
after breakfast waving a Stars and Stripes large 
enough to have covered the doll’s house like a 
tablecloth, so they hung it out of the nursery win¬ 
dow instead, and Jasper “fluted” it when he 
went out in his pram. And Alison got the little 


274 


CHILDEEN OF THIS 


flag from George and pnt it between that of Eng¬ 
land and France on the dolFs house, and he 
further presented the Strachans with two little 
khaki gunners to man the gun on the roof, for 
there were rumors to the effect that London would 
get it particularly hot that summer. The Huns 
were so angry about America. 

That very morning great-uncle Jasper came to 
see the children, and gave each of them, including 
George, a bright new half-croAvn. 

Jasper was much pleased with his, and refused 
to be parted from it even after Nannie had dressed 
him to go out. He declared he would hold it ex¬ 
ceedingly tight and not ‘‘jop’’ it. Nannie had 
taken him with her down to the kitchen to get the 
list of wanted groceries from cook, and before you 
could say ‘‘knife’’ he had raced into the scullery, 
mounted a chair, and thrust the new half-crown 
down into one of the divisions of the knife-ma¬ 
chine, proclaiming triumphantly that it was “a 
bid money-box.” And there the half-crown re¬ 
mains to this day unless somebody has been 
demobilized who understands Kent’s knife-ma¬ 
chines. 

Nannie hated to take Jasper to shops instead 
of the Park, but she had to do it sometimes because 
things had to be got and there was no one else to 
fetch them; besides, the “pram was handy for 
parcels.” He thoroughly enjoyed these expedi¬ 
tions and certainly cheered up the shopping of 
other people. 

That morning when they arrived at the grocer’s 
there was the usual tired, cross-looking throng of 


THE DOLL’S-HOUSE FLAGS 275 


honsewives bearing string bags, irascible old gen¬ 
tlemen with leather ones, and the inevitable slate 
with the restrictive annonncement: ‘‘No Matches. 
No Jam. No Bacon. No Tea. No Cheese. No 
Lard. ’ ’ 

“Tnt, tut,’’ muttered Nannie. “No cheese 
again! ’ ’ 

“No tzeeze adain,’ Jasper instantly repeated, 
but in ringing tones that might have indicated 
glorious news, and everybody laughed. 

“Bless his heart,” said Nannie when she got 
home, “he does his bit as well as anybody.” 

Alison was always ready enough to take care of 
Jasper, and was thoroughly trustworthy as re¬ 
gards letting no harm befall him; but she looked 
upon such “minding” in the light of “war work,” 
and her methods were somewhat austere. 

She was annoyed that he should constantly in¬ 
terrupt mummy when she read aloud the latest 
war news from The Times by frivolous calls for 
admiration of his clock-work rabbit, and that 
mummy never failed to respond. And Alison was 
positively shocked that he could go on playing 
absorbedly with the said rabbit even when mummy 
read to them a letter from daddy in France. 

She forgot that, for Jasper, daddy was chiefly 
known as a picture in a frame that stood on a 
table by mummy’s bed, whereof he kissed the 
glass, making a smudge on it, every night when 
he had said his prayers; whereas the familiar rab¬ 
bit was furry and comforting to carry, and went 
across the floor in a succession of exciting hops 
when it was wound up. 


276 


CHILDREN OF THIS 


After all, Jasper was but a very little boy. 

As for Barbara, she followed where Jasper led. 
Barbara was no sort of use for minding. Yet she 
could devise most delightful games, and gave 
dolls’ tea-parties when all the vanished delicacies 
that used to grace such festivities before the war 
appeared again. So lavish was she with choco¬ 
late eclaires and cream buns and ‘‘white and pink 
sugar cakes’^ that Alison, the conscientious, was 
moved to expostulate, exclaiming: “What about 
the rationing, Barbara?” 

“There’s no war in fairyland,” Barbara an¬ 
swered serenely, “and this is a fairy tea, so you 
can have as many lumps of sugar as ever you 
like.” 

Jasper was a cause of anxiety at these func¬ 
tions, because he would put a whole plate in his 
mouth at once. The V.A.D. doll fell over back¬ 
ward, she was so shocked. Such voluptuous gas¬ 
tronomic joys as chocolate eclaires and cream buns 
woke no responsive thrill in Jasper’s breast, for 
he had never either seen nor tasted one or the 
other, so when called upon to pretend to eat some¬ 
thing, he seized the nearest thing of handy size. 

The children’s house had a basement, but 
George’s mother lived in a beautiful Willet house 
that had none, so that autumn he and his mother 
and their maids used to run over “to spend the 
raid” with Jasper’s household when the first 
maroons sounded. 

After the Zeppelin raids the doll’s house had 
been brought down from the nursery to a room in 


THE DOLL’S-HOUSE FLAGS 277 


the basement where there was a gas fire, and the 
children used to play with it and enact many thril¬ 
ling dramas while the raids were going on. As 
George had prophesied, London got it particnlarly 
hot during the harvest moon of 1917, with five 
raids in eight nights. 

They had all just got back from a holiday in 
the country and, with the exception of Barbara, 
who was gun-shy and hated the noise, they really 
felt the strain far less than the grown-ups. 

Jasper usually slept most of the time in his 
mother’s arms, but after a particularly loud crash 
would rouse himself to murmur with sleepy com¬ 
placency: ‘‘That was a good one. We got ’em 
that time.” 

But Barbara, when the barrage was unusually 
deafening and prolonged, remarked rather pite¬ 
ously: “How it must ’asturb the poor angels!” 

It was during the very last raid of all, in May 
of the following year, that something happened 
to the doll’s house. It was on a Sunday night, 
and the maroons didn’t start till eleven o’clock. 
George and his household hurried over as soon as 
he had got some clothes on, and Jasper woke up 
and was very talkative and cheerful. Arrayed in 
a blue dressing-gown and bed-shoes, he ran about 
the room, interfering with George and his sisters 
in their arrangement of the Strachan family, and 
shouting lustily in concert with the louder 
crashes. 

He wasn’t often allowed to touch the interior of 
the doll’s house, for his methods were too Bol¬ 
shevist, and he was inclined to instigate conduct 


278 


CHILDREN OF THIS 


wholly opposed to the characters of so douce and 
respectable a family. 

That night Barbara insisted that Jeannie, the 
maid, and the baby shonld take refuge under one 
of the counters, while Mr. and Mrs. Strachan and 
the shop assistants crouched behind the other. 

It happened that just then Jasper had developed 
a mania for collecting smooth, round stones, and 
Alison had suggested he should form an ammu¬ 
nition dump to supply the Strachans’ machine- 
gun. This dump he was allowed to build near the 
stumpy little low oak table on casters that had 
supported the dolFs house from the time it was 
first built. Mummy had carefully explained to 
him that he must on no account throw the stones at 
anything, because Jasper came of three genera¬ 
tions of left-hand bowlers, and had already shown 
that he could throw a ball in the direction he 
wanted it to go. So far he had never thrown a 
stone either at things or people, for he was a kind 
little soul and no more disobedient than the gen¬ 
erality of small boys of three. But he carried a 
stone in his hand all day long unless Nannie dis¬ 
covered it and took it from him. He liked the 
feel of it, its smoothness, its roundness, its vast 
potentialities. 

That night he had been shooed away from the 
dolFs house half a dozen times, for Alison and 
George were absorbed in a thrilling play in which 
the Strachans captured a German spy who was 
guiding enemy air-craft by means of forbidden 
lights. 

Just as the ‘‘Archies” were barking their 


THE DOLL’S-HOUSE FLAGS 279 


londest, and an unmistakable bomb dropped some¬ 
where, Jasper, on the other side of the room, gave 
a whoop and let fly the stone he had in his left 
hand straight at the dolPs-house roof. It took one 
of the wooden chimneys broadside on and broke 
it clean off, narrowly missing the massed heads 
of his tw^o sisters and George, which were luckily 
almost inside the house absorbed in the spy drama. 

It also cracked some of the neat little slates on 
the roof. 

There was a general consternation and excite¬ 
ment, and Jasper scurried across the room to se¬ 
cure another stone from the dump, when he would 
have undoubtedly had a shot at the other chimney 
had not Nannie caught him and held him tight. 

Then it was that Alison astonished her family, 
for instead of demanding instant and condign pun¬ 
ishment for her destructive little brother, she 
danced about the room and burst into poetry, 
shouting at the top of her voice: 

The Strachans are in the War Zone, their house has been 
hit, 

They Ve caught a bad spy and they Ve all done their bit. 

‘‘She’s a most onaccountable child, Miss Ali¬ 
son,” said Nannie to cook next day; “she was 
actually sorry that the stone didn’t go right 
through the roof, an’ you’d have thought she’d 
have gone on ever so . . . anyway, it kept them 
from caring much about the raid.” 


CONCERNING CHRIS AND EASTER (1916) 


Easter is the only girl, a sort of happy after¬ 
thought at the end of a long family of five boys, 
with six years between her and her next brother. 

Chris is the only precious child, born after a 
good many years of marriage to devoted and 
adoring parents. 

Easter doesn’t think much of boys. They are 
common as blackberries in her family and she is 
keenly sensible of her own distinction in having, 
as she puts it, ‘‘chosen to come as a girl.” 

Thus it came about that her mental attitude 
struck Chris with something of a shock; not 
wholly unpleasant; stimulating; the tingle of re¬ 
sentment tempered by a thrill of amused surprise. 
It was so odd and new to meet anyone who felt 
like that. 

Besides, till he came to live in Easter’s village 
he had been rather lonely, and she supplied a felt 
want. Especially had this been so in the last two 
bewildering years, for his parents had seemed less 
absorbed in him than was quite dutiful. And for 
the last year his father had vanished altogether 
to that mysterious place that swallowed up so 
many pleasant and familiar folk; that over¬ 
shadowing, omnipotent, vastly extending region 
known as “the front.” 


280 


CONCEKNING CHEIS AND EASTER 281 

Easter, on her part, welcomed the society of 
Chris. She, too, was lonely by reason of the very 
same cause as Chris. Little girls were scarce in 
that village and Easterns mother was busy all day 
long with war work of one sort and another, and 
owing to the same cause Chris’s governess. Miss 
Radley, only gave him her society during the bare 
hours of lessons, which lessons had for some time 
been shared by Easter. 

Now Easter was much better at lessons than 
Chris; much quicker, in most things far more in¬ 
telligent and receptive. Only in arithmetic did 
Chris shine, and in this subject he had soared 
away from Easter and did abstruse calculations 
in the end of the book all by himself with Miss 
Radley. 

Easter was bom on an Easter Day, and this 
year she was eight years old. Chris was bom on 
Christmas Day, and last Christmas he was eight. 
Therefore, in spite of his prowess in arithmetic, 
he maintains that he is a year older than Easter. 

‘‘Wheren’t you born in 1908?” he demands 
sternly. 

^‘Ye-es,” answers Easter, ‘^on an Easter Sun¬ 
day. They were so pleased.” 

‘‘And I,” says Chris, “was born in 1907. Take 
seven from eight and what remains?” 

“One, but it isn’t a real, whole one,” Easter 
objects. 

No one knows this better than Chris, but he 
stoutly maintains: “A year’s a year, and you’re 
either born in it or you’re not—so there.” 

However, in spite of this and many other dif- 


282 


CHILDEEN OF THIS 


ferences of opinion, they had decided to get mar¬ 
ried when they came to what Easterns nurse calls 
‘‘a suitable age.’’ 

As a rule Chris follows blindly where Easter 
leads, giving in to her stronger will and con¬ 
siderably stronger body, though not always with¬ 
out protest. 

Easter is tall for her age and very muscular. 
She has a gentle, early-Victorian, regularly fea¬ 
tured, delicately tinted face, with a high fore¬ 
head, abundant curly, fair hair, and large pathetic 
blue eyes that are entirely misleading. In fact, 
her appearance is as unlike her real character as 
it is possible for such an extremely agreeable ex¬ 
terior to be. She looks all softness and gravity 
and gentle melancholy. Whereas she is a ruth¬ 
less and determined young person who cares noth¬ 
ing for ‘‘moral suasion” and less for punish¬ 
ments and penalties, provided she gets her own 
way. 

Chris, on the contrary, is soft-hearted and easily 
ruled through his atfections. He would rather not 
be disobedient and troublesome unless such break¬ 
ings of the law are expressly commanded by 
Easter. 

But to be called a “muff” is more than he can 
bear, and rather than Easter should think this of 
him he will offend his whole dynasty of friends. 

Chris and Easter were sitting under a hedge 
brilliant with scarlet hips and cloudy with “trav¬ 
eler’s joy.” The hedge topped a fairly steep 


CONCERNING CHRIS AND EASTER 283 


bank, with a ditch full of muddy water at the 
bottom of the bank. 

A heated argument was in progress as to the 
names of their eight daughters. Easter had al¬ 
ready chosen the names, and they ran as follows: 
Irene, Semolina, Rosalind, Majorca, Minorca, 
Vinolia, Larola, and Salonica. Chris objected to 
Semolina and Vinolia. 

‘‘I hate semolina,’’ he observed gloomily, ‘‘al¬ 
most as bad as I hate rice.” 

“But it sounds so much nicer.” 

“And Vinolia, too—greasy stutf you smear on 
chapped legs.” 

“It’s got a lovely smell,” said Easter. 

“And why,” demanded Chris, who was in a 
bold and captious mood, ‘ ‘ should there be eight of 
’em? Why can’t there be some boys?” 

“I won’t have boys, I tell you,” Easter de¬ 
clared firmly. “Girls are far prettier.” 

“Are they?” asked Chris incredulously. “I’ve 
never seen any pretty ones.” 

Instead of asking “Where are your eyes?” 
Easter said huffily, in life-like imitation of nurse: 
“That’s as it may be. Anyway they wear far 
prettier clothes.” 

“You don’t,” Chris pointed out. 

Easter looked down at her extremely short and 
faded navy-blue skirt, at her long legs stuck out 
in front of her, at her muddy boots, at the large 
hole in the knee of her stocking. Save for the 
said skirt she was dressed almost exactly like 
Chris, in muffin cap, reefer and brass buttons. 

“Sometimes I do,” she maintained; “but any- 


284 


CHILDKEN OF THIS 


way, Irene, Semolina, and Kosalind, and Majorca, 
and Minorca, and Vinolia, and Larola, and Salon- 
ica wdll all have lovely frocks, silk ninon, with 
sashes. Chris, they’ll be perfectly sweet, and we ’ll 
make them walk two and two in front of us to 
church. ’ ’ 

‘‘I tell you,” Chris declared, unmoved by this 
entrancing vision, ‘Hhat I don’t ivant so many 
daughters. I don’t like them, I don’t want ’em 
and I won’t have ’em.” 

‘‘Then,” Easter ejaculated in breathless tones 
that should have warned him, “I shan’t marry 
you. ’ ’ 

“I don’t care,” the callous Chris announced. 
‘ ‘ The country wants men. I heard my daddy say 
so the last time he was home. There’s far too 
many women as it is. They can’t fight.” 

“Can’t they*?” the indignant Easter exclaimed 
ironically, and giving Chris a vigorous and wholly 
unexpected push, rolled him down the steep bank 
and into the ditch with a mighty splash; and then, 
adding insult to injury, she dug her heels into the 
wet grass, and taking-off with skill and surety, 
jumped over his prostrate body on to the road, 
whereupon she ran away, laughing derisively. 

Chris got most uncommonly wet, for the bottom 
of the ditch was slimy and soft. Even after he 
had struggled to his feet they slipped about and 
sank in far over the tops of his boots. And when 
he did manage to scramble up the bank to the road, 
he certainly looked a deplorable object, covered 
with mud and green slime and with water oozing 
from every bit of him. He stamped his feet and 


CONCERNING CHRIS AND EASTER 285 


nibbed tKem on the wet grass that bordered the 
road without much visible betterment. 

There was no going back through the village in 
such a plight, so he climbed the first five-barred 
gate he saw and started on a long cross-country 
journey that was to bring him home by unfre¬ 
quented ways. He found the unfrequented ways, 
for he didnh- meet a soul, but he lost his bearings 
altogether. The wind got up and there followed 
cold, gusty showers of rain and hail. He felt 
chilled and miserable and dreadfully tired. Field 
after field he traversed and yet found no familiar 
landmarks, till, having toiled uphill over a heavy 
ploughed field, he reached a road that stood fairly 
high, and below him on the far horizon he recog¬ 
nized the square tower of his own church. He 
plodded on and on till at last he trotted wearily 
up his own drive, and there he saw that not only 
Miss Radley but the three maids were all gathered 
on the steps of the front door. The moment Miss 
Radley saw him she ran toward him, exclaiming: 

‘‘Oh, Chris! Where have you been? We were 
getting so anxious. Do you know it^s half-past 
five? My dear boy, how wet you are! Come in 
and get changed at once.’’ 

The maids went back into the house when they 
saw Chris, and Miss Radley hurried him in and 
upstairs, not even waiting to make him wipe his 
feet. 

“We’ve been so anxious,” she repeated. “I 
went to Easter’s, and she said you’d parted ever 
so long ago. Why did you go off by yourself like 
that?” 


286 


CHILDEEN OF THIS 


Chris was half in, half out of his sailor blouse 
by this time, and mnmbled something about hav¬ 
ing got tired of Easter. 

Miss Eadley didnT worry him much with ques¬ 
tions, nor did she comment severely upon his dirty 
state. She was extraordinarily kind and got her 
hands all over mud in helping him to take otf his 
boots; and it was not until he was lying luxuriously 
in a hot bath that it struck him as odd that his 
mother didn’t come to him. All the time, too, he 
had the feeling that Miss Eadley wanted to tell 
him something and yet she couldn’t seem to begin. 

‘‘Where’s mummy?” he asked at last. “Isn’t 
she back yet? I wish she’d come and talk to me.” 

Miss Eadley looked queerly at him, almost as 
though she were going to cry. “Chris dear,” she 
said, and waited for quite a long time, “mummy 
has had to go away. ...” 

“Away! For the night? Where to? Why?” 

“Chris dear”—again Miss Eadley seemed to 
find it difficult to go on—‘ ‘ she had a telegram, just 
after you went out, from the War Office, asking 
her to go at once. Your father is in a hospital at 
Boulogne, very ill . . . wounded.” 

“Dangerously wounded?” asked Chris, who was 
familiar with war terms. 

Miss Eadley nodded, and two tears ran down 
her cheeks. “That’s what it said.” 

“I think,” said Chris, “I’d like to get out of 
this bath now.” 

When he was dressed he didn’t seem to want 
the long-delayed tea, even though there was a 
beautiful brown egg and lovely buttered toast. In 


CONCERNING CHRIS AND EASTER 287 


spite of the hot bath and a bright fire in the school¬ 
room he felt horrid, cold trickles running down 
his back all the time. He was extremely tired, too, 
yet only conscious of one overwhelming want— 
to be taken on his mother’s knee and comforted. 
Miss Radley took him on hers and sat with him 
right in front of the fire. She was very kind and 
told him how sorry mummy had been to go off in 
such a hurry without saying good-bye, but there 
was just one train that would reach London that 
night if she caught it at the junction; and the 
squire, Easter’s father, had driven her himself 
in his motor, and they just managed; and she was 
crossing to France that night in charge of a 
brother officer of dad’s—she had her passport 
long ago. 

Every now and then Miss Radley lightly touched 
his face, which was very hot, and then she would 
hold his hand, which was very cold. Half-asleep, 
Chris would murmur from time to time, ‘‘danger¬ 
ously wounded,” but somehow he couldn’t feel 
about it as he knew he ought to feel. Though he 
adored his daddy, all he felt was this overpower¬ 
ing ache of longing for his mother. 

Easter’s scornful refusal to have any boys in 
her family had hurt him very much. He felt lonely 
and pushed out, somehow; and he badly wanted 
the one person who never failed in her apprecia¬ 
tion of little boys, even if they were thin and 
small and not particularly good looking, and could 
not run so fast as . . . certain little girls. He 
was conscious of being all these undesirable things, 
and yet he was convinced it was a great and glori- 


288 


CHILDREN OF THIS 


ous thing to be a hoy, even if Easter didn’t think 
so. Once, after a long and acrimonious discus¬ 
sion with her on this very subject, he had said to 
his mother: ‘H choosed to come as a boy, didn’t 
I?” 

‘‘God chose,” said his mother gravely. 

“Me and God settled it together,” Chris an¬ 
nounced complacently, and his mother got up sud¬ 
denly and looked in a cupboard for something she 
never found. 

In Chris’s mind God and Father Christmas 
were inextricably mixed up. He had no fear of 
either one or the other. Both were beneficent and 
considerate and ready to give people their choice 
both as to presents or other things. 

Yet when he was put to bed that night he 
couldn’t dream of pleasant, soothing things, but 
was pursued by eight strong daughters in em¬ 
broidered ninon frocks and pink sashes, who 
formed themselves into a solid phalanx and drove 
him to the edge of an awful precipice, and were 
just pushing him over . . . when he would wake 
to find Miss Radley standing beside his bed, look¬ 
ing anxious and troubled, shading a candle with 
her hand. 

The war had not touched Easter very nearly. 
Her mother had forbidden nurse to talk about it 
to her; and her father (judging her sensitiveness 
wholly from her gentle, Early-Victorian appear¬ 
ance) was careful to keep all frightening or de¬ 
pressing news from her as far as was possible. 
All her life she had been sheltered and adored 


CONCERNING CHRIS AND EASTER 289 


and spared and spoiled. Her brothers, being so 
much older, had given in’’ to her from the very 
first, and although the two eldest were fighting— 
one in the navy, the other in the army—their do¬ 
ings did not seem to affect her particularly. And 
of the three still at school she had, of late, seen 
very little, for in the holidays they were always 
doing O.T.C. training, or making munitions some¬ 
where. 

Yet one thing had impressed her during the last 
two years. She was always hearing that some of 
their acquaintances had ‘‘lost” a son, a brother, 
or a husband. They did not talk of “killed” or 
“missing” to Easter; but they did speak of this 
continual and mysterious “loss,” and with the 
queer secretive puzzledom of childhood she never 
asked people outright what they meant by the 
phrase. 

It worried her, this continual losing. She 
never heard that these lost ones got found again. 
Suppose she herself got lost in this irretrievable 
way? How dreadful it would be. What would 
her family do? In justice to Easter one must 
allow that the thought of her people’s consterna¬ 
tion quite overshadowed any possibly unpleasant 
consequences to herself. 

She had never discussed the question with Chris, 
who knew a lot about the war and wanted to talk 
about it to the exclusion of more interesting top¬ 
ics—such as daughters. But this was easily over¬ 
ruled. Moreover, Easter’s mother had decided 
that far too much was said about the war in Chris’s 
hearing, and she had asked Miss Radley to warn 


290 CHILDREN OF THIS 

him not to talk about it to Easter lest it should 
upset her. 

Miss Radley had her own opinion of Easter’s 
sensibility. She had not taught the children for 
six months without discovering which was the 
more susceptible and imaginative. But she did as 
she was bid, and Chris had done his best to obey 
in his turn. Perhaps in a lofty masculine way he 
was rather proud that he should be allowed to 
know things closely hidden from the domineering 
Easter, and was therefore the less anxious to 
share his knowledge with her. 

He whole-heartedly admired Easter. She was 
so strong, so good at things, so invariably cheer¬ 
ful and well, with a never-failing fund of good 
spirits and energy. It is very possible that one 
of her chief attractions for him lay in the fact that 
she seemed so entirely outside those great and 
grave anxieties that obsessed everybody else. 

Easter was brought up to understand that any 
‘‘career” that she chose was open to her. She 
should have an equal chance with any of her 
brothers; she might be a doctor for a factory in¬ 
spector, or a police-woman, or go in for any art or 
craft she fancied. Literature, art, music, even the 
stage, were to be open to her, should she so wish. 
But, so far, her sole ambition was centred in the 
possession of a husband, a meek husband, and 
eight meek daughters to move and have their 
being at her decree. 

It was the swing of the pendulum with a ven¬ 
geance. 

No one told Easter about Chris’s daddy that 


CONCERNING CHRIS AND EASTER 291 

afternoon. In the evening she prepared her les¬ 
sons with her cnstomary energy and intelligence, 
and giggled cheerfully from time to time at the 
recollection of Chris’s comical appearance as he 
lay floundering in the ditch. 

‘‘That’ll teadi him,” said Easter to herself, 
“whether it’s to be daughters or not!” 

Next morning at breakfast her mother said: 
“Miss Radley can’t take you to-day, Easter dear, 
so it’s no use your going over. They had very bad 
news yesterday, and Mrs. Denver has had to go to 
France. The major is very ill.” 

“Has Chris gone!” Easter asked. 

“No, dear; but Miss Radley sent over a note 
quite early to say he has got a bad, feverish cold 
(he got so wet yesterday—^it’s a pity he didn’t 
come back with you), and we don’t Imow what it 
may turn to. So you must just take a holiday, for 
I’m due at the hospital supplies at ten, and shall 
be away all day.” 

“What’s the matter with Major Denver?” 

“I fear,” said her mother, anxiously watching 
the earnest, delicately tinted face upturned to 
hers, “I fear he is very badly wounded.” 

“Oh!” said Easter, and she looked very grave. 

“Be as happy as you can, my precious,” her 
mother called to her as she drove away. “I’ll get 
home as early as possible.” 

That was a very long day for Easter. 

For one thing, it rained all the morning; for 
another, her father had to go a long way off on 
business connected with special constables, and 
couldn’t take her; and Amelia, the usually cheer- 


292 


CHILDREN OF THIS 


ful housemaid, went abont the house with red eyes 
and a perpetual sniff, because she had heard that 
morning she’d lost a cousin in the ‘^big push on 
the Somme.” 

Amelia was distinctly depressing. 

Easter knitted a few rows of her scarf—the 
scarf that was always begun by her and finished 
by somebody else because she got tired of it. She 
found she was missing Chris far more poignantly 
than was at all pleasant. 

After all, even if he didn’t always quite give in 
to her, he was good company; and Easter found 
herself remembering many kind things he had 
done. The chocolates he had always shared so 
generously, the apples so unequally divided always 
in her favor. Once when she fell off a wall and 
scratched her hands and tore her frock so badly, 
he hadn’t laughed, and he was so seldom rough 
in play, only when unbearably provoked. Easter 
was too honest not to admit that even at the time. 

It cleared up in the afternoon and she ran over 
to the Denvers’ house to see if Chris was up yet 
and could play. 

Emma, the parlormaid, was firm in her refusal 
to admit Easter. 

‘^Master Chris is that bad, so feverish it might 
turn to anything, the doctor says. Miss Radley 
said no one was to come in, and she haven’t left 
Master Chris a single minute herself. It’s dread¬ 
ful, and us all in such trouble about the major, 
too.” 

‘‘You haven’t lost him, have you?” Easter 
asked. 


CONCERNING CHRIS AND EASTER 293 


‘‘Good gracious! no, not yet, so far as we 
knows. But he’s as bad as bad, and,” she added, 
“if anything was to happen to Master Chris and 
his ma away an’ all—^but, there! I can’t bear to 
think of it. You run along home. Miss Easter. 
I’ll tell Miss Radley you came to ask.” 

And the door was shut in Easter’s face. 

Next day the news was no better. Even Easter’s 
mother could not keep from her the universal 
anxiety as to Major Denver. He had been their 
doctor for a year before the war, and in that time 
had managed to endear himself to everybody. 

It w^as said he had taken a country practice be¬ 
cause he thought the bracing air would be good 
for Chris. Every soul in the village felt a special 
right to know the latest news of the major, and 
Miss Radley had the telegrams pinned on the 
front door as soon as she got them. 

All day long people came up the drive to read 
these telegrams, and presently there was a bit of 
white paper as well, concerning Chris, for the 
doctor’s little son lay grievously sick at home, 
while his father, they feared, was dying of his 
wounds in France. A white-capped hospital nurse 
had come to help Miss Radley. 

Easter was a very lonely little girl. She felt, 
too, that in some inexplicable fashion she was shut 
out from things, that more was happening than 
she was allowed to know; and, worst of all, Chris 
had so entirely disappeared that she began to fear 
that he, too, was lost, and they were afraid to tell 
her. 

At the end of nearly a week she felt she could 



294 


CHILDKEN OF THIS 


not bear this fnrtiveness and suspense a minute 
longer, and she determined to go to Chris’s house 
and find out for herself just what had happened 
and was happening. She would not ring the bell. 
She would go round to the side of the house and 
see if the schoolroom window was open, and get 
in and find Miss Kadley and force her to tell the 
truth. If Chris was lost, then she, Easter, must 
herself set forth to find him without more delay. 

All fell out as she had planned. 

The schoolroom window, which opened like a 
door divided down the middle, was open, and Miss 
Eadley, with her back to it, sat at the table, 
writing. 

Easter could move quietly as a cat when it 
suited her. She came in without making a sound, 
and stood just behind Miss Eadley, who was so 
absorbed she noticed nothing. 

^‘‘Have you lost Chris, Miss Eadley?” Easter 
asked loudly. 

Miss Eadley started violently, and Easter came 
round to her side, and she noticed that Miss Ead¬ 
ley’s usually round, rosy face was pale and much 
less round than it used to be. 

‘‘Oh, Easter dear, how you startled me! Don’t 
suggest such a dreadful thing! We’re awfully 
anxious, with his mother away and all this other 
trouble, but ... we must hope always, always 
hope—for if anything happened to Chris ...” 

“What Jias happened to Chris?” Easter asked, 
searching the very soul of Miss Eadley with her 
large clear gaze. 

“He got so wet after he left you that day last 


CONCERNING CHRIS AND EASTER 295 


week—I can’t think how—and he got a real bad 
chill, and now there are all sorts of complications 
—and his temperature keeps up so.” 

‘‘What are complications?” Easter interrupted. 

“You wouldn’t understand. . . . Oh, Easter, 
child, don’t stare at me like that! Aren’t you 
sorry?” 

“I know how Chris got so wet,” Easter said 
slowly. “I pushed him into the ditch.” 

Miss Radley drew back a little from Easter; 
then she put out her hand and laid it on the child’s 
arm. 

“I expect it was only in fun . . . you couldn’t 
know. . . .” 

“Can’t I play with him a bit? Is it catching?” 
Easter’s voice was still quite loud and matter-of- 
fact. “It’s rather dull and lonely for me.” 

“For Miss Radley echoed indignantly. 

“Don’t you understand? Don’t you care, you 
hard child? But you never did care for anybody 
but yourself.” 

“Does Chris?” 

“Yes, indeed he does. He’s always been a dear, 
kind boy. Easter, you must go home. I can’t stop 
to talk to you now. Try to think about other peo¬ 
ple a little ...” 

Miss Radley did not finish her sentence, for 
Easter had gone from her as silently as she had 
come. For a minute the governess sat quite still. 
Then she sighed and shivered, and went on with 
her letter. 

Easter fled down the Denvers’ drive and out into 


296 


CHILDKEN OF THIS 


the road, but she didn’t go home. She ran and 
ran till she could run no more, and dropping into 
a walk, turned downhill along a winding lane 
thickly bordered by trees so high that they almost 
met overhead, forming an arch. The light in this 
avenue was curiously lurid, for the trees were 
beeches, and though rapidly thinning, were still 
gorgeous in reds and yellows. The avenue led to 
a church in the next parish (Easter had run such 
a long way), and she had been there quite lately 
with Chris to a fruit and flower service in aid of 
the local hospital. Miss Eadley had taken them 
both, and now Easter remembered there were very 
large vegetable marrows at the base of one of the 
pillars, and wondered if they were still there. 
She and Chris had sat next each other at that 
service, and during the sermon he had let her hold 
his knife. It had a corkscrew and a thing for 
taking stones out of horses’ hoofs, as well as 
blades, and all were very difficult to open. Chris 
was good about lending his things. And he never 
told of people. What did old Eaddles mean when 
she called her hard? She did care for Chris, 
but she wasn’t going to say so to Eaddles. Yet 
Eaddles looked awfully sad. Supposing they had 
lost Chris, after all, and were afraid to say? Sup¬ 
posing she, Easter, got lost, now, to-day? This 
was a long, lonely, unfamiliar road, with such a 
queer light in it. Supposing it were enchanted 
and she couldn’t find her way back? Then she 
would be like aU those sons she had heard about 
lately. Her heart began to beat very fast. Ah! 


CONCERNING CHRIS AND EASTER 297 

somebody was coming up the road. She would 
ask her way. It would be dreadful to be lost. 

A very tall lady came toward her walking 
slowly up the hill. She was dressed in black, with 
a long thin veil turned back from her face. She 
looked restlessly from side to side, as though try¬ 
ing to find somebody in the shadows. This 
seemed quite natural to Easter. Timidity or shy¬ 
ness with strangers was unknown to her. She 
was glad to see somebody, and the tall lady’s face 
was very gentle. 

‘‘Have you lost anybody?” Easter asked as they 
met. 

The tall lady stopped, and though she looked 
straight down at Easter, the child was uncomfort¬ 
ably conscious that she didn’t really see her. 

“I have lost my only son,” said the lady. 

“You, too!” cried Easter, and what she could 
not say to Miss Radley she found it easy to say 
now to this pale lady who looked at her so 
strangely. “Oh, I am sorry!” 

And she took one of the lady’s hands in both 
her own. 

The lady did not draw her hand away; with her 
eyes still fixed on Easter’s face with that queer, 
unseeing look, she said: ‘ ‘ Dear child! And you ? ’ ’ 

“Not yet,” said Easter. “Not yet—at least, 
they say so, but I’m dreadfully afraid.” 

“Don’t be afraid,” said the lady. “Don’t be 
afraid. That’s what he always said.” 

“Everyone,” said Easter, and her hard little 
voice grew soft, “everyone seems losing sons and 


298 


CHILDEEN OF THIS 


people. Won’t you never, never find him again?” 

Into that lady’s face there leapt a sudden radi¬ 
ance as when a clearly burning lamp is carried into 
a dark room. Her eyes were luminous and bright, 
and Easter felt that she was really seeing her at 
last. 

‘‘We shall all find them again,” she said almost 
joyously. “Everyone of us.” 

“Are you sure!” Easter questioned. 

“In sure and certain hope,” said the lady. 

“In sure and certain hope,” Easter repeated. 
“I like that. You are sure!” 

“Absolutely. Tell me, dear, who is it you are 
anxious about!” 

Hand in hand they had started slowly to mount 
the hill. 

“It’s Chris,” she said. “He plays with me a 
lot and we do lessons together . . . and they 
won’t let me see him, and I want to teU him I’m 
sorry.” 

“But why won’t they let you see him!” 

“Because they’re afraid they’ll lose him—I 
heard that, though Eaddles denied it when I asked 
her.” 

“Then he’s ill!” 

“I suppose so.” 

The lady looked curiously at Easter. There was 
no doubt whatever that she was troubled, and yet 
. . . how oddly the child spoke. 

As they walked on, hand in hand, the lady said, 
more to herself than to Easter: “Does the road 
wind uphill all the way!” 


CONCEENING CHEIS AND EASTEE 299 

‘‘No/’ said Easter; “when we get to the end 
of this it’s qnite flat.” 

When they came to the main road Easter took 
her hand out of the lady’s. “I know my way 
now,” she said. “Good-bye.” 

The lady stooped and kissed her. “I should 
write to Chris if I were you,” she said. “He’ll 
probably like a letter very much when he’s a little 
better. ’ ’ 

Easter nodded and started to run, with that 
swift, long-distance, steady running that had so 
often worn out Chris; that was his admiration and 
his despair. And as she ran she repeated over 
and over again: “In sure and certain hope” all 
the way. 

She would write to Chris directly she got in. 
Her copies were always neater than his. 

But she couldn’t do it the minute she got in, 
for tea was ready, and her mother there to have 
it with her. Her mother looked pleased, too. Bet¬ 
ter news had come from France. There was hope 
that Major Denver might pull through, after all; 
and she had seen Miss Eadley, and Chris’s tem¬ 
perature was nearly down to normal. 

It was a lovely tea; and directly after it Easter 
sat down at her mother’s desk and wrote to Chris. 
Very large, with beautiful up-and-down strokes: 

“Dear Chris, 

“I’m sory I pushed you. Sum of them shall 
be boys. The ones with the names you don’t like. 
Please don’t get lost. 

“ Your loving 

“Easter.” 


300 


CHILDREN OF THIS 


She licked the flap of the envelope with copions 
completeness, and in one comer of the address, 
very thick and black, in inch-long printed letters 
was the word ‘‘Eaugunt.’’ 




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